Loyal Turks or Fake Muslims? a cancer or parasite. Rüştü uses the metaphor of comparing the Dönme
to the filthiest animal imaginable to Muslims to refer to the damage these
foreigners can cause to the nation’s precious soil.
Rüştü concludes by offering the Dönme an ultimatum: either integrate
or leave. He can see only these two alternatives: “either in accordance with
a special law definitively mixing and intermarrying with Turks, working
in common for the good of the entire fatherland and nation, or look for a
way to solve our problem outside the boundary of the nation in whatever
material and spiritual form it takes.” Relieved of his burden, Rüştü then
places responsibility on the shoulders of the government: “Our Grand
National Assembly, which is successful in purifying and liquidating the
filth accumulated for centuries, will, God willing, also soon take care of
this inauspicious problem, and those who ascribe frivolity or other traits
to me and attack me today will soon kiss my hand and appreciate and
revere me. Guidance and success is from God.”
Rüştü’s furious attack reflected the view of many Muslim authors
since 1906. Writing around 1907 against political decentralization, which
would benefit Christian and non-Turkish peoples, the CUP leader Ba-
haettin Şakir argued that the Turks were “the real and legitimate owners
of the fatherland that had been soaked with the blood of [their] mar-
tyred patriotic ancestors.”^10 After 1913 , an entire book and booklet series
entitled “The Library of Awakening” published by Tüccarzâde İbrahim
Hilmi was devoted to explaining the causes of Ottoman defeat in the
Balkan Wars. Singled out in one book by Ahmet Cevat was parasitism.
“Commercial parasites” were most harmful, because Ottoman economic
interests were placed in the hands of foreigners / non-Muslims. Because
Muslims were merely consumers, they were enslaved by foreign producers
and merchants, who lived off their wealth. In this life-and-death struggle,
the Muslims would have to expel foreigners and non-Muslims from their
life source, the economy, symbolized by blood.^11 Moreover, some in the
political elite, such as Talat Pasha, the minister of the interior until 1918 ,
also utilized the parasite motif, proclaiming that Armenians, Greeks, and
Jews shared all the benefits of the fatherland, yet bore none of its burden.^12
They “never participated in war” and “never spilled a drop of blood,” but
during times of war continued to make money through trade and lived
well. Because Turks defended the fatherland, and the Dönme did not,
Rüştü observes they should not be surprised that in 1924 people objected
to their continuing their distinct traditions and living “as a parasite.”^13