Who is financing the violence?

We are living in a period where middle school-aged children are introduced to violence so early, the age of drug use has dropped to 12, and the weight of a teacher's word has lost its significance.  Families cannot get through to their children. Schools are moving away from being spaces that produce discipline and meaning. 

It would be simplistic to explain this picture only as “the youth of today” as a catch-all explanation. “Education is the root of everything”might sound like a very classic phrase, but it is the absolute truth...

The date of the school massacres in Şanlıurfa and Kahramanmaraş is also interesting. April 17 is the anniversary of the founding of the Village Institutes, one of the main load-bearing pillars of Turkey's Enlightenment Revolutions.  Founded on April 17, 1940, the Village Institutes were not just schools; they were centers for production, art, and for the rural population to be introduced to republican values and transform into free individuals. The erosion began within the CHP during the single-party era, involving landowners, the merchant class, clergy, and both military and civilian bureaucracy. With the Democratic Party coming to power in 1950, this campaign of attrition intensified, leading to their closure in 1954. 

Those who extinguished that light back then laid the foundations for today's darkness. The closure of the Village Institutes can be seen as one of the root causes of many of the structural problems we face today. 

Through the policies implemented since that day, the education system has been steered away from cultivating qualified individuals. With the 1980 coup, the curriculum was based on the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis. In recent years, even the Turkish-Islamic Synthesis has lost its influence. A model that disregards science, weakens critical thinking, and is based on superstition has gained strength.

An education system that moves away from reason, science, and analytical thinking to prioritize superstition is also a massive cost that erodes social capital; in other words, it is a loss of generations, a destruction. It is the annihilation of a country's future. 

The dreams of the youth have been stolen. Nearly 30 percent of the young population is neither in education nor in employment. A large portion of young people are considering finding an opportunity to settle abroad. If a society cannot offer a future to its youth, those young people will seek the meaning of life elsewhere. Sometimes in anger, sometimes in violence.

We cannot simply dismiss the issue by calling them the 'youth of today.' The government bears responsibility, but the problem is not limited to that. We are facing a political engineering project focused on collapsing the social structure in every field, including education. Let us look at television screens.

Does this violence emerge only from flaws in the education system, or is it being manufactured? Let us make the question even more unsettling: Do we also have a responsibility in this structure that produces violence?

In the series watched by millions every evening, violence is no longer a 'side element' but has become the main language of the story. Guns, executions, revenge scenes... Violence is not just shown. It is normalized as if it were the ordinary flow of daily life, and sometimes even glorified.

It is not easy to understand RTÜK. While scenes involving cigarettes and alcohol are censored with great sensitivity, scenes featuring weapons, executions, and psychological trauma that promote violence are brought to the screen without any restrictions.

Cigarettes are harmful to health... That is true, but aren't bullets? 

Here, I will quote from Salim Kadıbeşegil's article in the January-February 2026 issue of Brand Map Magazine. Salim Kadıbeşegil is my friend and companion of nearly 45 years. He is a communications expert who is among the most influential names in Turkey, especially in reputation management for companies and brands... Kadıbeşegil has a very clear observation:

“Advertisers do not just buy screen time; they also become partners in the culture that screen produces.”

Because these series are not just content. They are also mechanisms for cultural production... And this mechanism does not work on its own. Who is financing these series that erode social culture and peace, and feed violence and terror?

The answer is very clear: Brands, advertisers, sponsors, product placements... Today, behind a high-rated series, there are not only screenwriters and actors. There are also the brands that keep that series afloat with their budgets. In his article, Salim Kadıbeşegil touches upon a very important concept and provides examples. Ethical blindness.

On one hand, there are brands running 'Women's Day' campaigns...

On the other hand, there are the same brands that advertise on TV series where violence against women is heavily depicted.

During the day, a "value for women" message, and in the evening, "violence against women" scenes.

This is not just a contradiction. This is a systematic inconsistency, and more importantly, it is a reputational risk...

So, is it just the brands? This system also has a silent majority. The viewers. Those who do not react. Those who say, "What can we do, it's like this everywhere."

Let us note solutions regarding education and public order as a topic for another article. Let us look at the TV side of things. The solution is not in more bans or harsher penalties. The solution is, in redefining responsibility.

For brands, this is very clear: Not advertising on content that contains violence is not a "sacrifice,"

it is an investment in reputation. It earns the brand a star. As Kadıbeşegil points out, brands that do this voluntarily not only do the right thing; they also gain trust in the eyes of the consumer. Salim Kadıbeşegil uses the following expression in his final paragraph:

"For instance, I have already given the first stars to Samsung and MediaMarkt, who decided not to advertise, sponsor, or engage in product placement in series and programs whose main subject is violence against women and children!"

I, too, give the same star to Yapı Kredi Bank, which has decided not to advertise on violent broadcasts. 

The violence you finance today in the name of ratings returns to us tomorrow on the streets, in schools, and in neighborhood relations as a bullet or an act of violence. Do not forget that with your advertising budget, you are not just marketing your product; you are also financing that culture and that violence.