By Yusuf KANLI
TDN - In a country the population of which borders 70 million, which has some 11 percent "official" unemployment - that does not take into account the rural population as well as seriously discriminates against women - alarming reports about pedophilia crimes, the professed failure to provide - and difficulties in convincing parents to allow their daughters to benefit from - adequate education means, increasing domestic violence and many such other problems in the society it should be none of the business of a prime minister to decide how many kids Turkish families must have.
Particularly at a time when the prime minister has some very serious tasks such as salvaging his, his party's and perhaps Turkish democracy's future and averting a possible approaching "perfect storm" in the economy which might affect this country very seriously, such "private affairs" indeed must be none of his business.
Yet, during one of those uncontrolled outbursts the prime minister said he believed an average Turkish family must have at least three kids and now in line with his political philosophy that a leader never takes a step back, is having problems stepping back.
What matters for this country's administration must be the quality of life our people have, rather than how many kids they should have.
Erdodan is insisting that if Turkish families don't start to have at least three kids, by the year 2037 Turkish society, like the current European nations, will lose the high percentage of its energetic young population in the overall population and he cares less that the over 60 percent energetic and young population of this country is facing serious unemployment problems while streets of not only Istanbul, but Diyarbakyr and many other streets are full of kids who are being employed by the "begging industry" run by some dark figures.
Love is responsibility:
A family must decide itself how many kids it should have considering its own economic, social, housing, schooling, time and many such factors. Love is responsibility. A family cannot have as many kids as they would like, or they were told by the prime minister, but rather according to the conditions they are in as well as prospects they can create for those kids.
The prime minister must come to his senses and realize that if conditions of a family allows and if the couple wishes so, having three or more kids might not be a burden and a suffering either for the family and the nation, but if the family does not have sufficient economic strength or time to adequately raise those kids, those kids will become a burden and a source of suffering for that family and the nation.
Turkey is no longer a predominantly agrarian country. In today's Turkey - though the political ideology and world view of the prime minister and his men may not agree - a family cannot overcome economic difficulties without both wife and husband being employed. Besides, employment is the first step of achieving a more dignified life and economic independence for our women.
Rather than bothering with how many kids families must have, the prime minister must concentrate on his job and try to devise policies which will generate more employment opportunities for our men and women.
Congratulations Chelsea!:
While in London and after sparing some time and enjoying the game - a real football feast - between Fenerbahçe and Chelsea, it perhaps would be nice to write about the victory of the Turkish team. Unfortunately, there was no victory for Fenerbahçe, though with its superb performance the team did not deserve a defeat. Chelsea won the match with a 2-0 score line after staging a real fight for it. Had Chelsea lost the game, we would definitely say it did not deserve a defeat. But what counts at the end of the game is the number of goals scored and Chelsea sent two balls into our net and Fenerbahçe could not. It was a nice game, after all.
The result has dashed the European Cup hopes of Fenerbahçe, and perhaps relieved the Galatasaray fans who were apparently worried of the prospect of a second Turkish team becoming the European champion - of course, a joke as including this writer many Galatasaray fans at the stadium and millions glued to their TV sets back at home, chanted throughout the game in support of Fenerbahçe.
Congratulations Chelsea!.. You played better and won.

(Yusuf Kanly can be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected])