  Recent 21 cm radio observations of H$_I$ regions in the Small Magellanic
Cloud, have revealed spatial power spectra of the intensity, which are quite
similar in shape to those previously deduced for the Galaxy. The similarity, in
spite the differences in the physical parameters between the Galaxy and the
SMC, suggests that the shape of the power spectra reflects some underlying
mechanism which is not too sensitive to the environmental specifics. In this
paper we present an interpretation for the observational power spectra in terms
of a large scale turbulence in the interstellar medium, in which the emitting
H$_I$ regions are embedded. The turbulence gives rise to density fluctuations
which lead to the observed intensity fluctuations, in the H$_I$ regions. The
observational power spectra are used to deduce the turbulence spectral
function.
  In the SMC, the turbulence largest eddies are comparable in scale to the SMC
itself. This implies that turbulent mixing should have smoothed out any large
scale abundance gradients. Indeed, this seems to be the case, observationally.
  The turbulence is also expected to amplify and shape up the large scale
magnetic field. Indeed, the observational data indicate the existence of a
large scale disordered field of the strength expected from energy equilibrium
with the turbulent velocity field. The large scale turbulence is most probably
generated by instabilities in the large scale flows induced by the tidal close
encounter with the LMC $ \sim 2\times 10^8{\rm yr}$ ago. The life-time of the
largest eddies is $\sim 4\times 10^8{\rm yr}$ so the turbulence had not yet
enough time to decay and persists even though the energy source is no longer
there.
