The large turnout in Istanbul for the funeral of Mustafa Koc, along with the thousands of tributes on social media, says a lot about what has been happening in Turkey during the past decade. These days, prominent businessmen usually don't draw such affection.
Koc, who died of a heart attack Jan. 21, ran a company that claims to account for 8 percent of Turkey's economy and 14 percent of its exports. The Koc group, which produces everything from cars to petroleum products, grew during the country's military and secularist-dominated era — from its beginnings in 1926, soon after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk formed the Turkish Republic, until the election of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's religious conservative Justice and Development Party in 2002. The business has continued to prosper since.
In a country where secular and religious conservative companies have formed separate associations (Tusiad and Musiad, respectively), and where consumers choose even chocolates according to whether they are manufactured by "secular" Eti or conservative Ulker companies, Koc's continued success was never a given. And the government controls many of the contracts and privatizations on which conglomerates such as Koc rely for growth.