Istanbul
increasing horror of the receiving states, did not in any way resemble the
local population, but were stained by the marks of otherness?
As Kemal Arı has pointed out, forced migration, such as the population
exchange, has lasting effects on the people compelled to abandon their
homelands and the people who receive them.^3 Migrants lose social status,
social and business connections. If wealthy, they can become poor, great
economic losses obliging them to start over from scratch. These socio-
economic problems contribute to psychological problems. Having lost
social and political capital and wealth, forced to leave their home and
hometown, established milieu, and land of their fathers, they then have to
fit in and get along with a new society and neighbors in a new economy.
The problem is made worse when it is assumed that they are blood broth-
ers and thus carry the same habits and values of the new society, when in
fact they do not. Forced migration leads to jealousy and suspicion and
economic rivalry, which can result in clashes and murder, as occurred in
Anatolia in disputes over the distribution of homes, land, and crops. In
response, migrants settled in separate villages or separate parts of towns.
Locals found them different, their customs strange, their foreign language
or accents incomprehensible, their clothes and food odd, and their wom-
en’s veils inappropriate. Not mixing, being foreign to each other, each
group felt superior to the other and sought the upper hand.
When thousands of Muslims who were deported by Greece arrived
in the new nation-state of Turkey in accordance with the population ex-
change, the Dönme deportees drew considerable public scrutiny. The
group presented a puzzle to Muslims in Turkey. Were they really Mus-
lims deserving of citizenship in the new republic, or were they secret Jews
who had no place there? Were they Turks or foreigners? How could Turks
or Muslims distinguish who exactly were Turks and Muslims, and who
were Dönme? Public debates centered on questions concerning the fun-
damental nature of the new society being created: Should minorities that
seemed to be a danger to the majority population be allowed to maintain
their own identity within the society, or should they be forced to assimi-
late and renounce their belief in that which made them different? Could
a parallel society be accepted? What should the society look like? What
were its values?
Incited by the public pronouncements of Dönme, the identity of the
group was debated in the Turkish press and parliament. Most crucial was
the role that the Dönme played in defining the parameters of the discus-