In the previous entry, I wrote that producing widespread feelings of resentment in petty-bourgeois audiences is both necessary and easy for the Turkish power-state. I left out something crucial; something that makes resentment much more potent—the role religion can be made to play in it.

There is a particular way to interpret almost any religion so that it will function as an excellent tool for the power-state. It is based on the notion of religion as compensator for things that you will never get in the first place—sour grapes writ large. In this scheme, religion provides losers with an excuse to lose—various desirable but unaffordable goods are banned so that the have-nots can feel superior to the haves. As Sheldon Cooper’s mother explains to Penny: “Well, I can’t afford a $12,000 handbag, but it’s free to look on those who do with righteous condemnation.”

They do indeed.

Notably, this scheme works for the haves’ benefit. First, being scorned by poorer and less powerful people while you drive by them in a BMW with your supermodel girlfriend is infinitely better than being stuck with a government intent on taxing BMW owners heavily to finance good schools and hospitals. Second, that feeling of resentment toward BMW owners will then be used to keep the party that, far from taxing BMW owners heavily, subsidizes their businesses because they are “job creators.”

In the case of contemporary Turkey, two components of the dominant religion’s repertoire of beliefs are emphasized over others and added to sour grapes. The first is the duty to continuously call on all people, believers and non-believers alike, to leave evil behind and do good instead—emr-i bi’l ma’rûf ve nehy-i anil münker. So it’s not just that you are not allowed to drink alcohol—you are also required to warn others continuously when they drink alcohol. Or when they have sex outside wedlock. Or when they fail to dress appropriately. The net result is that the feeling of sour grapes is never allowed to cool down—there’s always somebody to call on, especially in big cities, and the faithful must be ever vigilant. This is a burden on the faithful, but it is alleviated by the holier-than-thou attitude it enables. Imagine Sheldon’s mother feeling it her right to not just look down with righteous condemnation but also to go tell people, with apparent self-confidence and concealed satisfaction, that they are going to hell unless they give up their $12,000 handbags.

The second is various business-friendly passages in scripture. These are applied selectively but the selection has an airtight logic. They are applied to pious Muslims who have managed to build fortunes for themselves, allowing them to drive BMWs and hang out with beautiful people, perhaps even indulging in a bit of wine behind closed doors. The logic is simple—they must part with a relatively small portion of their wealth as zekat. Resentment is therefore never allowed to turn on the petty bourgeoisie itself.

I am not saying that Islam, or any other religion for that matter, is a religion of resentment. There are other interpretations of Islamic scripture. But for those other interpretations to compete with this one on even ground, something has to change. Right now, the resentment-inducing version is the unofficial state religion, and Muslims who find themselves at odds with it are as badly harassed as Christians, Jews, and atheists.

In case you’re wondering, here are at least three such disadvantaged interpretations of Islam in Turkey today: First, there is Islam as the religion of social justice. “All property belongs to God” being the motto, people who monopolize access to god’s green earth are seen as impious in this version even if they are professed Muslims outwardly. Second, there is Islam the private religion, inspired by the principle that no one shall intercede between God and his faithful. Third, there is Islam the civic religion, inspired by the old Sufi tradition, often repeated but not always practiced by the prime minister himself, of loving all creation, without exception, as much as loving oneself.