The 'Strong Family and Strong Society' myth!

The political government has declared 2025 the 'Year of the Family.' President Erdoğan made the following statements at the 'Year of the Family Promotion Meeting': “The family is the essence and foundation of society. For national and spiritual values to be protected, the family, and therefore society, must be strong.

Education, morality, discipline, and personality are built within the family. The family must be protected from deviant movements, and children and youth must be protected from digital dangers. There is an erosion of social values, and developments such as the wearing away of cultural identity are triggering global gender-neutralization policies.” If you recall, during the 2023 elections, opposition parties and Kılıçdaroğlu were accused of being pro-LGBT. On the evening of his election victory, Erdoğan used these exact words in his speech:

“Is this CHP pro-LGBT, is this HDP pro-LGBT, is this IYI Party pro-LGBT, are those few small parties alongside them also pro-LGBT? Well, can LGBT infiltrate the AK Party? Can it infiltrate the other members of the People's Alliance? For us, the family is sacred.”

What does that have to do with anything, right? You might say. The smear propaganda that ‘CHP is an enemy of religion and the headscarf,’ and that ‘Kılıçdaroğlu is from Dersim, an Alevi, and a PKK-supporting LGBT advocate’ became the main strategy of the government's election campaign. In particular, the systematic inclusion of the emphasis on ‘LGBT advocates’ (social stigma) as part of a political campaign was something rarely seen in previous election campaigns. It is a sociological consensus that status-quo social institutions, such as religion and family, are always resistant to change, uncertainty, and unpredictability. The phenomenon of ‘homosexuality’ also does not align with the conservative values and norms of Turkish society, is equated with ‘immorality,’ and reinforces distrust toward the out-group (the opposition/Kılıçdaroğlu during the election process). The government continued to repeat this strategy throughout the election period without hesitation, based on the sanctity of the family and the piety of society, and achieved political results.

While Erdoğan opposes abortion and family planning, and advocates for strengthening the family institution, early marriage for youth, and increasing the population by having at least 3 children, it is possible to say that the opposite developments are taking place in social and cultural life.

For one thing, over the last 15-20 years, as with all social institutions, there has been a tremendous change toward the ‘weakening’ of family and marriage institutions. Statistical data supports this weakening with various parameters. Events that prove the family institution, which forms the foundation of society, is practically cracking are increasing. How can we explain that the family institution, which should be a sanctuary, a place for socialization and preparation for society, and a center for psychological satisfaction and security, has become a nest of ‘violence and abuse,’ especially regarding these few incidents that have been reflected in the media and wounded the conscience of society?

In recent times, a few examples of the ‘domestic violence-brutality’ cycle in Turkey can be shown. A child murder that deeply wounded the public conscience recently occurred in Diyarbakır. In the trial regarding the death of 8-year-old Narin Güran, the detained defendants, uncle Salim Güran, mother Yüksel Güran, and brother Enes Güran, were sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime of "intentional killing of a child in participation." In İzmir, a father shot and killed his three children, aged two, four, and 14, with a gun, and one child was taken to the hospital injured. In the Selçuk district of İzmir, five children left home alone became victims of a fire.

It was alleged that the mother locked the door when leaving the house. In the Eyüpsultan district, a 17-year-old child who had a mental breakdown killed his mother, father, sister, and grandmother, with whom he lived in the same house, with a gun. In the Çorlu district of Tekirdağ, Amir Yazıcı, who strangled his daughter Su Dilem Yazıcı to death and attempted suicide by cutting his wrists, was referred to the courthouse after his procedures at the police station.

Yazıcı was arrested by the duty magistrate. If you notice, family members are always at the center of these horrific events. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Some sociologists state that the relatively most dangerous place in modern societies is the home (household). Women and children are usually abused or killed by someone within the family. Are these situations always a coincidence?

The fact that the family, which is the miniature foundation of society, has become a monopoly of crime, violence, neglect, and abuse brings with it very serious social problems. Economic deprivation, violence, and abuse lie at the forefront of the collapse of the marital union, that is, the phenomenon of divorce, which is increasing like an avalanche. It is a fact that the increase in divorce, cohabitation, single-parent families, and remarriage rates has weakened the family institution. Sociologists and psychologists point out that this new situation is leading to many social problems. The decline in moral standards, social chaos, the epidemic of drug use, the explosion in crime and violence incidents, suicide, antisocial behaviors, hooliganism, and the rise in social problems such as vandalism can be read as different manifestations of the deterioration in society.

The famous psychologist, Arno Gruen, evaluates the reasons that put human collective life into crisis from another window. Gruen's argument is as follows: “Why are economic collapse, cyclical recession, wars, destruction, hatred, fratricide, violence, drug consumption, crime, the belittling of women and children, rudeness, and cruelty increasing? Is it possible to reduce this crisis to national, economic, and technological problems? No; he says this is a matter related to our definition of what makes a human human, and our own understanding of being human.”

Based on this, although the social dissolution and changes occurring in the family and related institutions cause concern about a ‘survival problem’ stemming from conservative values at the government level, it is a fact that they cannot be kept separate from the dizzying change occurring at the global level. The rational solution to the social problems created by this change does not seem to be turning the family into a ‘romantic myth’ or clinging to conservative values, but rather the implementation of a modern social policy system. Strengthening the bond between the individual, the family, and society is possible not through political and ideological suggestions from the top down, but only through contemporary policies that will be produced by relevant state institutions, local governments, academia, the media, and NGOs taking active responsibility.