With this step, the Federal Foreign Office would be doing the autocrats in the Arab and Islamic world a favor: it wants to cut EUR 380,000 from the online platform Qantara.de.

That would mean her end.

In Germany, the announcement was met with incomprehension among academics, cultural workers and journalists who deal with the Middle East.

It led to protests and open letters.

Qantara is said to be "indispensable" as a bridge to the Arab and Islamic world.

Platform for free discussion

Rainer Herman

Editor in Politics.

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The bridging function is just one aspect of the online platform Qantara, on which 120,000 articles by more than 300 authors from forty countries can be accessed free of charge in German, English and Arabic.

For Arab and Islamic intellectuals and cultural workers who feel committed to democratic values ​​and human rights, it is at least as important that with Qantara they have a platform for free discussion that is second to none in the Islamic world.

The Moroccan feminist Asma Lamrabet, who has made a name for herself as an author on women's rights in Islam, told the FAZ that Qantara is "an important forum for plural and controversial debates and for intellectual dialogues about common values ​​that are conducted across cultural boundaries “.

Intellectuals and cultural workers depend on platforms like Qantara because they "enable public discourse and enrich discussions by reflecting a wide range of opinions and perspectives".

counterbalance to extremism

Qantara.de was founded in 2003 as a response by the German government to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

As an instrument of foreign cultural policy, the platform was intended to counterbalance the discourses of the extremists and hate on the one hand, and the propaganda of the autocratic regimes and the conspiracy theories they spread on the other.

Authors write on Qantara, many of whom have no other opportunity to publish in their home country.

They address an audience that, through Qantara, gains insight into debates that are taking place outside their countries.

As Hazem Saghieh, one of the leading Arab intellectuals, writes: “Qantara.de transfers German and European perspectives on current issues to the Arab-Islamic world, and at the same time provides insights into the diverse and current debates in Islamic societies.” The platform brings a "considerable added value for understanding", according to the best-known editor of the pan-Arab daily "al-Hayat", which was discontinued two years ago.

Facts about the Holocaust

Authors like Saghieh can use Qantara to criticize the authoritarian regimes in their region, and Qantara also sends ideas to the countries of the Middle East that would otherwise hardly come into their own.

While the usual political discourse knows only the praise of the ruler, the Arab readers on Qantara learn that in Western countries attempts are made to resolve conflicts democratically and that controversies can be endured.

You will also learn the facts about the Holocaust and how Germany deals with the culture of remembrance.

"You get an insight into the culture of debate in Europe," says Loay Mudhoon, Editor-in-Chief of Qantara.de at Deutsche Welle.

Apparently, the last word on closing the portal has not yet fallen.

One is in exchange with the Foreign Office, said Deutsche Welle on request.

One of the authors of Qantara is the renowned Middle East scholar Ahmet T. Kuru from the University of San Diego.

He writes that at Qantara his essays are read by a truly global audience.

In his research, Kuru compares Western and Muslim societies.

In two decades, he has benefited from Qantara as a reliable and objective source.

With its academically sound and publicly accessible analyses, Qantara plays a historical role as a bridge between Western and Muslim societies.

A platform like Qantara contributes to intercultural understanding in a time of global challenges characterized by populist autocrats, wars and terrorism.

Even if Qantara is certainly not a mass medium, the platform reaches an intellectual elite and their multipliers.

Around 22,000 readers have subscribed to the newsletter, 17,000 hits are registered every day, and around one million users follow Qantara on Facebook.

These are the people who share democratic values ​​and are now in danger of being deprived of an important platform.

The Arab autocrats would thank the federal government.