In Jack Balkin’s Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology, memes are said to be the foundation of ideological thought, and that they form the cultural ideas behind racism. In other words (and I take it that), if your community believes that religion segregates the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, and the benignly evil from the malevolently evil, then you would have a bunch of people who has been culturally trained to be racist. The thoughts of racism (as concretized, discretely or otherwise, by segregation) are transferred down the generations through cultural narratives.

The ability of religion to manifest wrath and hatred has the same and equal space occupied by the capability to have such other concepts as free speech, freedom of expression, free trade, free love, etc. - all under the vermillion and periwinkle sky of freedom, or that which differentiates humans from pigs caged at slaughterhouses.

You want to be able to conduct your summer solstice procession, or attend the Christmas Eve Mass at 4am, or do ablutions in your temple? Then, you have to accept that your freedom to do so is equal to that of others wanting to express their culture in some ways that may be construed as violent. That’s the price to pay for such freedom.

But there’s a problem there somewhere.

There is the meme of religious fellowship, of religious celebration, of bliss in the hereafter, of religious tolerance, of religious intolerance, and of interfaith dialogue. The problem with religious conflict (even the pseudo and quasi types that harp on religious differences) is that: while the meme of religious hate is graspable; it is not to be trusted.

Unfortunately to non-harbingers of it, hatred is a meme not to trust. Some people would rather celebrate life than be caught in bad mood. There are other radical pursuits that need not be fundamentalist.

At the end of the day (or should I say, at the end of the world), those who propagated religious hatred would have wasted a lifetime of what could have been peaceful years.

Often, the willful imprisonment in the gulag of dogma is suspect. The Islamist ambition conveniently cloaks itself with persecution complex. Where’s the honor in that? Such is the thinking of those who do not trust the meme of religious hate.

The Philippines is currently on red alert not only because of yesterday’s twin bombings in Indonesia but also because of the series of bombings in southern Philippines a little over a week ago. The jihad umbilical cord that connects the two countries is one Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror group that isn’t exactly a tyro in its militant career.

The Philippines and Indonesia have witnessed other bombings in the past, no thanks to this group. Thousands of lives have been lost through the years because of these bombings.

JI is largely an Indonesian group but two of its top career officers are hiding in southern Philippines. The 2002 Bali bombers, Dulmatin and Umar Patek, both A-grade bomb experts, have trained the Abu Sayyaf (terror group in the Philippines) in the past. The camps of the Abu Sayyaf, in turn, have also served as training camp for JI time and again. Dulmatin has a $10m price on his head while Umar Patek has $1m. Both are hiding in Mindanao and Sulu in southern Philippines.

Jemaah Islamiah may be qualified as al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia as much as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is a franchise in Algeria and environs, and al-Qaeda Homebase is in Afghanistan-Pakistan.

al-qaeda in Southeast Asia, like all such groups that want to be tagged as al-Qaeda-linked, refuses to be called an insurgency group. Rather, they prefer to be known as Islamic militant resistance.

The armed Islamic militant resistance group JI has undertakings in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand. These countries have their respective significant Muslim population but the al-Qaeda agit-propaganda of jihad because of religious persecution has not caught fire in these countries.

Their fight for religious freedom a.k.a. establishment of Islamist states that follow the extreme rules of Sharia is a fantasy meme gone harmful in the form of militant ideology. Unfortunately for them, the countries in Southeast Asia where they want to exercise their fantasy meme do not trust the hate they propagate. That is why their jihad has not, and will not, prosper.

Singapore is busy being a country of malls where shopping is a sport, and where they’d rather manufacture the lucrative H1N1 vaccines. The country is also a police state.

Indonesia’s relentless passion to remain democratic is indefatigable, in spite of its 95 percent Muslim population that may potentially be tapped towards Islamist ideology.

Malaysia and Thailand would rather continue conducting democratic processes such as elections, no matter how chaotic.

The Philippines is busy with political infighting and the never-ending debate between the Catholic Church and the State on reproductive health bill issues.

In the meantime, al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia is busy concocting its latest batch of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) across the region, and detonating them through cell phones when rare opportunities arise – because that’s all they can do.

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