Turkey's march West

By Yigal Schleifer | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

As a devout Muslim, Celal Hasnalcaci believes women should cover their hair and dress modestly, as the Koran teaches. As the general director of Keep Out, a growing company that exports denim clothing from this city in the Turkish heartland to Europe, he makes jeans that hug the hips and expose more than a bit of midriff, as today's fashion dictates.

Mr. Hasnalcaci, a soft-spoken man with a graying mustache, sees no contradiction in that. He is both a Muslim and a businessman, he says. He also sees no contradiction in Muslim Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

"Our religion is Islam, but it doesn't say not to join with others. It says take your religion everywhere and show its goodness. If you don't show yourself, they won't understand you," he says.

"If we want to be modern and be technical and improve, we have to be together with the Europeans," he adds.

Hasnalcaci is part of a fast-rising entrepreneurial class known as the Anatolian Tigers.

Over the past decade, these Islamic-minded business owners from Turkey's conservative Anatolia region have emerged as a counterweight to the country's established secular elite.

As Turkey moves ever closer to its long-held goal of joining the EU, people like Hasnalcaci have become an important - and perhaps surprising - force behind the country's westward push.

They're embracing the old elite's European dream for Turkey, yet steadfastly holding on to their Muslim identity and conservative lifestyle.

It is a synthesis, observers here say, that could influence which Turkey will eventually greet Europe - and which aspects of Europe Turkey will eventually accept.

"This is the new face of Turkey. Ten years ago, some of this Islamic bourgeoisie was hesitant about joining the EU, but the hearts and minds have changed," says Nilufer Narli, a sociologist at Istanbul's Kadir Has University.

"They are for progress and modernization but with a big difference - they want to conserve their traditional life in the family and with their acquaintances," she adds. "They really want to adopt European norms, but there are some areas, like gender relations, where it won't be easy for them to do that."

Hasnalcaci is also chairman of the Kayseri branch of the Independent Industrialist and Businessmen's Association, known as MUSIAD, a national group that is something like a pro-Islamic chamber of commerce.

When it was founded in 1990, MUSIAD cast its gaze to the east and Turkey's Islamic neighbors. Since then, it has become a strong supporter of Turkey's EU bid, while still promoting improved economic ties with the Muslim world.

"A lot of them are pragmatic, and they have a government that is telling them that EU membership will mean more religious freedom and reduce the power of the military and the arch secular establishment," says Suat Kiniklioglu, director of the Ankara Center for Turkish Policy Studies.

"They also see that EU membership may provide a lot of opportunities," he adds. "Turkey is integrated into the global system, but EU membership would deepen that integration."

But as MUSIAD has changed, so has Turkey. In 1997, following the Turkish military's dismissal of the Islamist Welfare Party government, the authorities tried to shut MUSIAD down and blacklist its members. Today, though, Turkey is run by the socially conservative, Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP), whose leader, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was the guest of honor at a recent MUSIAD conference.

"Today we have slowly started getting to what we deserve, which is being given importance, being given influence," says MUSIAD's chairman, Omer Bolat. The organization now represents some 7,300 companies, which make up close to 10 percent of the Turkish gross national product, Bolat says.

"In the past, they had limited contacts, limited resources," says Narli. "Today they have more and will have even more if AKP stays in power. Today they present a real challenge to the old elite."

At the same time, she says, MUSIAD and its members have become more moderate, sticking to business and staying away from making statements on some of Turkey's hot-button social issues.

"What I see is the dilution of their cause as they become more bourgeois. Their rhetoric has changed," she says.

For the Anatolian Tigers and MUSIAD, the next big challenge may be convincing their conservative grass roots about the benefits of EU membership.

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