Qantara.de (

Classical Arabic Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic () is the standardized literary form of Arabic used from the 7th century and throughout the Middle Ages, most notably in Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid literary texts such as poetry, e ...

: , meaning 'bridge') is an Internet portal in German, English, and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

, produced by the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations in order to promote intercultural dialogue between the Western and

Islamic world The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is ...

s. The portal was formerly produced by

Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave"), commonly shortened to DW (), is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite tele ...

History

Online since March 2003, the portal was founded on the initiative of the German Foreign Office, in reaction to the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

in the U.S with the intention to provide a platform for intercultural and interreligious dialogue between the Western and Islamic world. It also cooperates with the Federal Agency for Civic Education (bpb),

(DW), Goethe-Institut (GI) and the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa). The portal presents journalistic articles about politics, society, culture and photographic essays by Western and Muslim authors, who seek open and respectful discussion of both communities, including controversial subjects. These have included contributors such as the Egyptian literary scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, the German former diplomat and Muslim Murad Hofmann, the conflict researcher Heiner Bielefeldt and the physicist Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker.

Restructuring

The portal was restructured and placed under the control of the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations starting July 2024, prompting the editorial team to resign claiming it left them "unable to guarantee editorial independence". The portal had previously published articles and interviews critical of the debate within Germany concerning

anti-semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

in the context of the Gaza war, but the foreign office denied that the restructure was related to the portal's recent content. An open letter signed by 35 Qantara authors in response to the restructure wrote:

"We see a real danger that a project which allows diversity of opinion and occasionally questions German foreign and cultural policy in its debates will effectively be shut down...The fact that the Qantara editorial team assumes that the portal will no longer be able to function as a critical, non-governmental, and independent medium if it is integrated into the ifa underlines the justification for our concerns."

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Online-only journals

History

Restructuring

References

Further reading

External links