Tag: kathryn montalbano

Communication Regulation, the Religious Right, and the Battle over Net Neutrality

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This week the Obama Administration scrapped the Fairness Doctrine and 83 other media regulations.  Kathryn Montalbano examines the ongoing struggle over radio, TV, and now, Internet access and content.

by Kathryn Montalbano

In June Ralph Reed, conservative American political activist and, during the 1990s, executive director of the Christian Coalition, hosted the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington, DC, perhaps more appropriately referred to as the “Christian Coalition on steroids.”  A smattering of Republican luminaries and presidential candidates, including Glenn Beck, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, were there to woo evangelical leadership and Tea Party activists, providing more proof the two are quite past any ideological differences.

The relationship functions, according to Reed, because the former group exhibits “a quintessentially anti-government, corporate-minded ‘Christian’ or ‘biblical’ view of the role of government.”

This alleged anti-government, corporate-minded philosophy hasn’t just helped at the polls. In the fierce debates surrounding Internet regulation and net neutrality—a term coined by former Columbia Law Professor and now member of the Federal Trade Commission’s Office of Policy Planning, Tim Wu—Reed’s reasserting his influence. Continue Reading →

Fashion Faux Pas as Resistant Force in France

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Kathryn Montalbano: NiqaBitch, a YouTube video released shortly after France’s September 2010 April 2011 official ban of face-covering head apparel, provides interesting if not deceptively complex social commentary expressed via the most fundamental medium for communication possible: the body itself.  Although the video is set to what commenters call “vulgar” rap music (in English) and is plastered with French subtitles detailing the sometimes humorous dialogue (see below the photograph), undoubtedly observers—both within and of the video—are drawn to the remarkably stark, eye-catching juxtaposition of bare, toned female legs with shrouds that are, in Western minds, meant to hide sexuality.

Continue Reading →

Tunisia's Secular-Religious Tension Heightens

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Kathryn Montalbano: In post-revolution Tunisia, tensions between what have been described as secular and conservative Muslim citizens recently heightened in the capital, Tunis, foreboding one of the major difficulties the country will face in rebuilding its sovereignty.  On Tuesday, members of the Islamist Salafist movement, which has propagated its demands in several Arab countries this spring (i.e. Jordan and Egypt), demanded the return of six of their activists who’d been arrested for vandalizing a cinema that was host to a group of secular lawyers. Continue Reading →

Tunisia’s Secular-Religious Tension Heightens

Posted on by

Kathryn Montalbano: In post-revolution Tunisia, tensions between what have been described as secular and conservative Muslim citizens recently heightened in the capital, Tunis, foreboding one of the major difficulties the country will face in rebuilding its sovereignty.  On Tuesday, members of the Islamist Salafist movement, which has propagated its demands in several Arab countries this spring (i.e. Jordan and Egypt), demanded the return of six of their activists who’d been arrested for vandalizing a cinema that was host to a group of secular lawyers. Continue Reading →

Tunisia’s Secular-Religious Tension Heightens

Posted on by

Kathryn Montalbano: In post-revolution Tunisia, tensions between what have been described as secular and conservative Muslim citizens recently heightened in the capital, Tunis, foreboding one of the major difficulties the country will face in rebuilding its sovereignty.  On Tuesday, members of the Islamist Salafist movement, which has propagated its demands in several Arab countries this spring (i.e. Jordan and Egypt), demanded the return of six of their activists who’d been arrested for vandalizing a cinema that was host to a group of secular lawyers. Continue Reading →

Ramdev's Hunger Strike Media Campaign

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Kathryn Montalbano: India, home to the longest-running hunger strike in the world, has a history of starvation as protest, most prominently stemming from the non-violent practices of Mahatma Ghandi who, single-handedly, turned the ubiquitous hunger strike into an Indian-specific political symbol.  But contemporary criticism of the use of hunger strikes in India questions the virtuousness of the method, noting how recent protests often implement coercive, sometimes violent means to blackmail governments into compliance.

Subhash Kashyap, former secretary-general of India’s lower house of parliament, claims in an article by  Ben Doherty, “Gandhi never fasted on major issues like his country’s independence, or where there was room for difference of opinion. …His hunger strikes were only for causes where there was so obvious a right and wrong ‘that not conceding would be palpably unjust.'” Continue Reading →

Ramdev’s Hunger Strike Media Campaign

Posted on by

Kathryn Montalbano: India, home to the longest-running hunger strike in the world, has a history of starvation as protest, most prominently stemming from the non-violent practices of Mahatma Ghandi who, single-handedly, turned the ubiquitous hunger strike into an Indian-specific political symbol.  But contemporary criticism of the use of hunger strikes in India questions the virtuousness of the method, noting how recent protests often implement coercive, sometimes violent means to blackmail governments into compliance.

Subhash Kashyap, former secretary-general of India’s lower house of parliament, claims in an article by  Ben Doherty, “Gandhi never fasted on major issues like his country’s independence, or where there was room for difference of opinion. …His hunger strikes were only for causes where there was so obvious a right and wrong ‘that not conceding would be palpably unjust.'” Continue Reading →

Ramdev’s Hunger Strike Media Campaign

Posted on by

Kathryn Montalbano: India, home to the longest-running hunger strike in the world, has a history of starvation as protest, most prominently stemming from the non-violent practices of Mahatma Ghandi who, single-handedly, turned the ubiquitous hunger strike into an Indian-specific political symbol.  But contemporary criticism of the use of hunger strikes in India questions the virtuousness of the method, noting how recent protests often implement coercive, sometimes violent means to blackmail governments into compliance.

Subhash Kashyap, former secretary-general of India’s lower house of parliament, claims in an article by  Ben Doherty, “Gandhi never fasted on major issues like his country’s independence, or where there was room for difference of opinion. …His hunger strikes were only for causes where there was so obvious a right and wrong ‘that not conceding would be palpably unjust.'” Continue Reading →

Bangladesh (Further) Surrenders Secularism

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Kathryn Montalbano: This week, the Bangladeshi government has pushed to retain the state’s Islamic status, a move that requires an amendment to the constitution that originally declared Bangladesh secular and independent from Pakistan in 1971.  Bangladesh’s path to independence could almost be credited to Indian Muslims, who sought reprieve from social and political marginalization in 1947 for their new state, Pakistan.

Newly independent Bangladesh was intended to serve as an egalitarian nation in which Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and Hindus could peacefully coexist. Continue Reading →

#gaymarriageNY

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Kathryn Montalbano: After a 3-hour debate today in the New York State Assembly, the future of gay marriage in New York–and ultimately, the nation–remains unsolved and undistinguished from concurrent deliberation, including a property tax cap and New York City rent control.

Meanwhile, rallies in Albany–for and against gay marriage–have highlighted the preeminence of the issue amongst New York citizens despite the bill’s languid movement within the Senate’s walls.  While the fight for gay marriage, led by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, remains relatively civil inside, tensions amongst and between protesters outside have steadily increased throughout the day.  According to Sharon Baum of New York City, “This is not about religion, this is about civil rights.”  Opposing protesters singing “This Little Light of Mine” and chanting “God says ‘No!'” apparently disagree with Ms. Baum.

While recent efforts in New Jersey, Maryland, and Rhode Island have failed to contribute to the national gay rights movement, hope is brewing around the pending outcome in New York, with demographics rendering it the third-most populous state in the nation. Continue Reading →