Turkey Torn Between Eastern Heritage and Western Opportunity

Student Hava Donmez (ph), who pulled up her sweatshirt hood while we spoke on camera, says she faced a painful choice, because Islam commands her to be covered, but even more so, she says, it commands her to learn.

TURKISH STUDENT: It's hard because you are trapped between your choices, and between your emotions, and between your -- maybe here, I was trapped in my religion belief and in my education.

MARGARET WARNER: Her friend, Daria Margan (ph), doesn't wear a headscarf on or off campus. But she thinks Hava (ph) should be free to express her religious beliefs without undermining modern secular Turkey in any political sense.

TURKISH STUDENT: It can't threaten people, and I think people makes this problem, not a headscarf.

MARGARET WARNER: The headscarf issue is central in Turkish politics today as a symbol of the struggle over whether to redefine the secularism of the modern Turkish state.

BEDRI BAYKAM: The tolerance that they want for the veil is something that they don't show at all for the other lifestyles, including the miniskirt, including women wearing sleeveless shirts, including alcohol, including nude pictures. It's a political propaganda tool.

It's not at all the conservative, traditional headscarf that our grandmothers used to wear. This is like totally invented by Islamist fundamentalists' lifestyles, and agendas, and political goals.

ALPARSLAN ACIKGENC, Dean, Fatih University: This is what they are basically saying, that these people are hypocrites. They say openly that they want secularism, but inside they don't want.

MARGARET WARNER: They're saying this about the government?

ALPARSLAN ACIKGENC: They say this about anyone who is actually religious. And as a result, they try to, you know, make an atmosphere of, you know, feeling uncomfortable in a religious environment.

MARGARET WARNER: Turkey's religiously conservative prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, insists he's more interested in cementing Turkey into the West than in trying to Islamicize its culture.

One recent Sunday, he spent all evening at a party-sponsored debate for young people over globalization, and the pro-globalization team won. Erdogan's people note it was his government that last year began negotiating for Turkey to join the European Union. And his foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, says Turkey is moving briskly to adopt evermore European economic, political and social norms.

ABDULLAH GUL, Foreign Minister, Turkey: Our government is a reformist government in this country. After so many years, there is a single-party government, and we upgrade the democratic standard. Turkey is modernized country, and it's getting -- every day it's getting more modernized.

One decade-old business, Keep Out Denim, sells $17 million worth of denim clothing each year, nearly half of it as exports, hugging the hips of young European women in a way that would make some conservative Islamists cringe. But not the factory's owner, Celal Haznalcaci.

A pious Muslim, he prays five times a day and has made his pilgrimage to Mecca. But business, he says, is business.

CELAL HAZNALCACI, Denim Manufacturer (through translator): Of course, in our Islamic culture, we're not in the habit of wearing clothes like these, but it's our business to manufacture them. We understand the demands of our customers, and we produce accordingly.

MARGARET WARNER: On his factory floor, he notes men and women work together. And while some women wear headscarves, others don't.

The number-one Kayseri powerhouse is the Boydak Group. One of Turkey's top 10 conglomerates, it's on track to sell $1.8 billion this year in furniture, textiles and financial services in Turkey and abroad. The company's deputy chairman, Sukru Boydak, voted for Erdogan's party, but says the West needn't worry about it trying to take Turkey in an Islamist direction.

SUKRU BOYDAK, Deputy Chair, Boydak Holding (through translator): It is because the people in our government are religious that those thoughts come to people's minds, but I definitely don't believe that Turkey will move to the right or become more Islamic. Seventy-five percent of Turks don't believe in this, maybe even 90 percent.

MARGARET WARNER: Recent polling here seems to bear that out. A survey published just last week by a respected Istanbul think-tank did find that a greater percentage of Turks now identify themselves primarily as Muslim.

Yet it also found that only 9 percent favor imposing Islamic Sharia law, down from 21 percent just a few years ago. And that gives heart to those who believe that Turkey's essential character won't change.

Many members of Istanbul's business elite, Muslim but secular in their private attitudes, seem to have made their peace with this government, because it has instituted the kind of economic reforms and stability that have been very good for business. They don't publicly acknowledge any worries about the government's alleged Islamist designs.

GULER SABANCI, Chair, Sabanci Group: I'm a businesswoman. I only talk with facts and figures. And just intentions, it's difficult to read.

MARGARET WARNER: Guler Sabanci is the most powerful businesswoman in Turkey today, as chairman of the country's second-largest conglomerate, the Sabanci Group. And she's bullish on Turkey's prospects for joining the European Union.

GULER SABANCI: There is a sentiment in Europe against Turkey right now, but I feel this is temporary. And also, we all know that the public opinions change.

Turkey needs to stay on this road. This accession process is important for Turkey. The process itself is important for Turkey. It is the journey that is important, not the destination.

MARGARET WARNER: The EU this week took steps to stall Turkey's membership over Ankara's refusal to let Greek-Cypriot ships dock in its ports, as well as concerns over Turkey's human rights record, its treatment of religious and ethnic minorities, and the prosecution of intellectuals on charges of insulting so-called Turkishness.

Yet Sabanci is confident the Europeans won't throw them off the track.

You wrote recently in the Financial Times that the EU needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the EU. What did you mean?

GULER SABANCI: That Turkey has, first, a young population. The demography is very important, which all the numbers show that Europe would need this in the future.

Second, Turkey has a geographical location. It's a bridge for energy sources; Turkey is a bridge for cultural sources. I think both Europe needs Turkey, and I also called Turkey needs Europe.