Al Kaabi: Louvre Abu Dhabi and art can foster dialogue
Louvre Abu Dhabi is a pioneering platform for international cultural exchange, developing relations between people and nations, according to Noura Al Kaabi, who addressed the Paris Peace Forum yesterday.
The Minister for Culture and Knowledge Development was a keynote speaker on a panel to examine how art plays a role in fostering dialogue.
Ms Al Kaabi said Louvre Abu Dhabi was part of official efforts to challenge established perspectives. “We are trying to change perceptions, so that art is seen as for everyone in Abu Dhabi,” she said. “We have the Louvre museum and it is not just for a certain section of individuals who are capable of collecting art.”
President Emmanuel Macron told the Forum gathering in north Paris that the challenge facing policymakers was to come together against
the unravelling of the global order.
The rise of nationalism in several regions was a shift towards war but there should not be a resort to “squeamishness or hypocrisy” in appeasing these forces. “We tried that option in the past – it leads to war,” Mr Macron said.
Also on the panel was Franck Riester, the French minister of culture, who spoke of his instructions from Mr Macron to make the vast stock of French art accessible to the greatest number.
“We have to reach out to other people and that is what we did with Louvre Abu Dhabi,” he said. “We are trying to share our heritage with other people in the world thanks to our partnership with the United Arab Emirates.”
With Ms Al Kaabi noting that the street leading to Louvre Abu Dhabi had been named to honour former French leader Jacques Chirac, the French minister said the recently deceased former president had a deep historical understanding of the region’s importance.
“Jacques Chirac said there is no hierarchy between cultures just as there is no hierarchy between people,” Mr Reister said. “The Arabian Peninsula has been at the crossroads for different cultures for millennia and has that role to play today.”
Mr Riester said he would establish a residency programme for French artists to go abroad and for “artists coming from conflict areas”. The businessman Thomas Kaplan, who promotes the Leiden Collection around the world, spoke of using art as a tool to offset tension at a time when people are building walls and division or, in the case of ISIS and other extremist groups, destroying ancient heritage in places such as Mosul in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria.
He said the bravery of displaying all historic forms of art was an act of greatness.
“What Louvre Abu Dhabi represents is potentially the most important development of our times,” he said, with reverberations not only in the UAE but to Saudi Arabia and beyond. In particular, it served as a counter to ISIS: “It is the riposte to the savagery of Mosul, the riposte to Palmyra. The bravery of this is to do it at a time when it’s easier to keep your head down.”
Imams from abroad seeking to work in Germany must prove they have sufficient German language skills if they want to live in the country, said a draft bill put forward by the country’s Cabinet.
Officials said language skills are a prerequisite for successful integration into Germany for those seeking employment largely devoted to religion.
“We expect foreign imams to be able to speak German,” a government spokesman said.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said: “Knowledge of the German language is indispensable for a successful integration – that is my firm conviction, all the more so when clergy are reference points for many other immigrants’ successful integration in Germany.”
As role models to their communities it is important religious figureheads are integrated because they play a key role in supporting the peaceful coexistence between different cultures, the draft bill says.
But the move was criticised by Bekir Altas of the Milli Gorus mosque association, who said the approach was dangerous. He accused the government of taking a populist path.
“Media reports suggest that imams in Germany do not speak a single word of German. This is wrong,” Mr Altas said.
“On the other hand, many imams who preach in their mother tongue and practise their profession perform extraordinary works every day. It would be more appropriate to thank these imams instead of damaging them with superficial measures,” he said.
Exact figures for Islamic centres in Germany and their funding are hard to ascertain, although reports suggest there are about 2,000 mosques.
Often imams from abroad are accused of lacking an understanding of German culture.
A recent report by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which is linked to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, said the posting of Turkish imams to Germany has long been controversial.
This has become sensitive since the failed 2016 coup against the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan when Turkish-funded mosques were accused of involvement in politics and espionage. The Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, a branch of Turkey’s government, funds about 900 mosques in Germany.