Honourable Minister
Most Esteemed Presidents of Our Civil Society Community
Former Presidents of Our MÜSİAD,
My Elder Brothers and My Brothers and Sisters, Members of MÜSİAD, With Whom I Am Honoured to Serve This Distinguished Homeland Together,
I thank you for making us experience the happiness of gathering around the same table on this exceptional evening of Ramadan, the month of mercy, abundance and brotherhood. May our Lord make our unity lasting and our brotherhood enduring. Welcome; you have honoured us.
Distinguished Guests,
At this table it is not only bread
At this table memory, at this table prayer, at this table labour and, most important of all, the same cause is shared.
Let us remember those first days when MÜSİAD was born…
The times when Türkiye was in search of economic and mental transformation… The days when a group of believing people set out saying, “This country will grow with its own values”…
In those days MÜSİAD was more than an economic organization. It was the economic language of a claim to civilization. It was the counterpart in the business world of the building of self-confidence.
We put forward our courage before our capital. We made the reckoning of the homeland before the reckoning of profit. We learned solidarity before competition.
The years passed…
From the modest workshops of Anatolia, brands that opened out to global markets were born. Small enterprises turned into large investments.
Export figures rose, production capacity grew.
In every line of these successes there is the labour of the people in this hall. Behind every rise there is the patience and the faith of this community.
And again in those years, a conception of leadership rising from within the nation walked in the same direction. The path of our esteemed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the path of MÜSİAD came together, back in the Türkiye of those days, on a road brought together not by circumstances but by faith.
MÜSİAD is the epicentre of a national will and of civil and economic reason that has always displayed an uncompromising stance alongside its state in Türkiye's struggle for liberation from its structural shackles and for full independence.
At every critical threshold, from the tutelage crises to the July 15 betrayal, from the global shocks created by the pandemic to the geo-economic turbulence of the recent period, we have lent our shoulder to the vision of a “Great and Strong Türkiye” with our factories, our employment and our exports. The historic familiarity we have left behind us is too deep to be shaken by cyclical fluctuations and too strategic to be sacrificed to day-to-day calculations.
Our togetherness is beyond political proximity;
It is a partnership of mentality, a companionship of direction.
It is the common expression of a conception of nation.
Today the world is once again passing through a historic threshold.
The geography of our region is living through one of the most eventful periods in its history; the balances of power are being reshaped. Today the struggle is far harder. Because we have a claim. Such periods require not only economic but also political and mental resilience.
The global situation we are in points to a period in which Türkiye needs a firm direction and a strong leadership perhaps more than it ever has. For this age is the age of those who walk not with hesitation but with determination. This direction, which intersects with the vision of leadership put forward by our esteemed President, is not a preference for us but a consciousness. It is a responsibility coming from our history.
Everyone should know this: MÜSİAD's direction today is what it was yesterday. Our stance is not shaped according to time and circumstance; it is nourished by principles. And at the centre of those principles is the will of a strong state and nation.
I state this with an easy heart:
In every condition and on every ground, the first to stand by a leader who puts the interest of his country first, today as in the past, will be MÜSİAD. Because we are travellers not of easy times but of hard times.
For us loyalty is not a slogan but memory.
For us unity is not interest but character.
For us the cause is not periodic but continuous.
While this iftar table reminds us of our past, it also renews our word concerning the future. We will produce more.
We will work more.
We will stand shoulder to shoulder more.
Because we are a community that has devoted itself to the same path.
And this path is not a personal but a national path.
May our Lord make our unity lasting.
May He make this community a means for good works.
May He give strength to our state and honour to our nation.
I wish you all a blessed iftar from my heart.