Loyal Turks or Fake Muslims? group (Yakubi) had so mixed with Turks that there were only a hundred
of them left.
Rüştü tried to shock the Dönme and alarm the Muslim public and
thereby cause the immediate flight or integration of the Dönme. Contra-
dicting a widely accepted tenet of Ottoman Islamic law and custom, he
proclaimed that even if the Dönme called themselves Muslims and acted
like Muslims, because of their origins, they could not be considered Mus-
lims. Rüştü may have been motivated by an aim to avenge his commu-
nity, since he had been banished and had financial disputes. Yet his public
declarations and frantic trips between Ankara and Istanbul to meet with
press, parliament, and president speak of a man desperate to prove his own
Turkishness, despite his lineage. He appears as a zealous convert to being
Turkish who is more pious than those born into the religion he urged the
Dönme to join. Ironically, Rüştü often vacillates between using the term
“us” and “you” when discussing the Dönme. This pronoun-switching illus-
trates the difficulty he faced in defining his own place in the new nation.
Yet did he imagine he could distance himself from being associated with
the Dönme by expressing such loathing for them? Or was convincing Mus-
lims that Dönme were Jews an elaborate ploy to have the exchange order
rescinded so that Dönme could regain their businesses and properties in
Salonika? Either way, his plan was contradictory, for by making Dönme
identity a public scandal, and playing a key role in depicting Dönme dis-
tinctiveness to others, he may have hindered their smooth integration.
Dönme identity was difficult to resolve so long as the question of race
surfaced and conceptions of race fed into understandings of the nation.
People asked whether those of alien or non-Turkish or Jewish blood could
be received as Turks if they pronounced a change in conscience to a belief
in Turkishness. How could minority attempts at maintaining a distinct
identity and embracing different beliefs and affiliations be feasible if be-
longing to the nation meant belonging to an imagined race? Faced with
biological requirements for citizenship, how could Dönme defend and
define their place in the nation?
Race, Class, and the Nation
Rüştü’s public attacks on the Dönme gave fuel to others to vent their
anti-Dönme hostility. Vakit and other newspapers took Rüştü’s pro-
nouncements very seriously and drew attention to the “flawed” population