More should be done to support the Arab World Institute in Paris

I do not write about the Arab World Institute in Paris as a distant observer, but as a witness to its birth. I was a participant in shaping its idea, and one of the Arab ambassadors who had the honour of working for it from the moment it was merely a dream we discussed in meetings with French foreign ministers, until it became a standing cultural landmark in the heart of Paris.

I served as ambassador in Paris between 1979 and 1984, during a period that saw an exceptional cohort of senior Arab ambassadors, when Arab cooperation through the Council of Arab Ambassadors was at its height.

I am proud to have been among those who helped advance this civilisational project, alongside distinguished Arab diplomatic figures, including the Saudi ambassador Jamil al-Hujailan, the Moroccan Ben Abbas, the Kuwaiti Issa al-Hamad, the Emiratis Saeed Salman and, later, Khalifa al-Mubarak, the Syrian Youssef Shukur, the Tunisian Hadi al-Mabrouk, the Iraqi Mohammed al-Mashat, the Jordanian Taher al-Masri, and the Sudanese Bashir al-Bakri. May God have mercy on those who have passed and grant them paradise.

These ambassadors, and others, genuinely believed that culture is not a diplomatic luxury, but a fundamental pillar in building relations between nations.

In those years, a serious Arab will converged with a clear French orientation towards deepening relations with the Arab world, particularly in their cultural dimension. It was based on a firm conviction that culture is the deepest and most enduring bridge between peoples.

From this interaction, the idea of the Arab World Institute was born, finding great enthusiasm in President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and later in President François Mitterrand, who continued along the same path.

His foreign minister, Claude Cheysson, was among the project’s most ardent champions, to the extent that he regularly met Arab ambassadors in a rural setting outside Paris, away from the constraints of protocol, to discuss avenues of cultural cooperation with sincerity and openness.

At the time, the enthusiasm was mutual, the Arab will was collective, and the prevailing sense was that we were laying the foundations for an Arab civilisational showcase worthy of our history in the heart of Europe.

Today, more than four decades on, the interview published in Al-Araby Al-Jadeed on 21 January 2026 with the Institute’s Director General, the poet and diplomat Shawqi Abd al-Amir, stirs feelings of pride mixed with deep anxiety.

The Institute we helped launch has become a model platform for presenting Arab culture as a living, diverse and creative culture—not merely as static heritage or a stereotyped image reduced by politics and breaking news.

Through art exhibitions, music, cinema, intellectual forums, Arabic-language teaching, and the Arab Literature Prize, the Institute has played an invaluable role in correcting the image of Arabs and building bridges of civilisational understanding.

More importantly, in the darkest moments of political tension and mutual misunderstanding, it has succeeded in performing a highly sensitive function of cultural diplomacy: offering the language of knowledge and beauty instead of the language of fear and confrontation. This is a genuine civilisational achievement—one that Arabs in Europe possess only rarely.

What pains me today, and what I sincerely fear, is that this edifice, born of balanced Arab–French cooperation, is now under threat because of a retreat in Arab commitment.

While France, as a state and through its institutions, continues to honour its financial and political obligations towards the Institute in recognition of its symbolic and cultural importance, many Arab states have abandoned their original commitments. This is with the exception of some Gulf countries that still maintain a minimum level of support.

The irony is painful: Arabs complain of the distortion of their image in the West and of the weakness of their cultural presence globally, yet at the same time they fail to support the most important institution established precisely to address this problem. What logic is this that demands cultural recognition without investing in its tools?

The Arab World Institute is not the project of a single state, nor a temporary initiative. It is a collective Arab civilisational achievement and a strategic instrument of soft power that should have enjoyed sustained Arab consensus, not fleeting enthusiasm that quickly fades.

The decline of joint Arab action today is reflected not only in its budget; it threatens the Institute’s very symbolism, exposing this great cultural achievement to the risk of erosion and marginalisation.

The real danger lies not only in the possibility of scaling back its activities or closing some of its departments, but in the catastrophic message this would send to the world: that Arabs do not value their cultural showcase when they are given a rare opportunity to possess one.

From this perspective, Shawqi Abd al-Amir’s appeal is not merely administrative or financial; it is, above all, a civilisational call. It is an invitation to rethink the meaning of Arab cultural responsibility, and the role of Arab states, institutions and business leaders in protecting a project that has proven, over decades, to be an investment in the symbolic dignity of Arabs before it is a line in a budget.

I write this as I recall those years in which we dreamed of this Institute and worked for it with a rare collective spirit, alongside dear colleagues, some of whom were among the finest figures of Arab diplomacy. And I say with sincere bitterness: it would be painful for an achievement we helped build with our own hands to be left to face its fate alone, at a time when France, in all seriousness, still carries it more than many Arabs themselves.

Ultimately, I find it incumbent upon me to address a direct appeal to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as a leading state with political and cultural weight in the Arab and Islamic worlds, and to my own country, the State of Qatar, which represents a recognised model in investing in culture and soft diplomacy: to exert every possible effort to preserve this civilisational achievement and support its continuity and development—not merely as a French–Arab institution, but as a global Arab showcase that represents us all.

The Arab World Institute is not simply a building or an institution. It is a model of how to engage creatively with other cultures, and a rare platform that allows Arabs to present themselves to the world through art, thought and beauty, rather than through crises and conflict. Protecting it today is a historical responsibility before it is a financial obligation.

If the Arab World Institute is to survive and continue fulfilling its noble mission, saving it must not be an act of charity, but a collective duty. Nations that do not protect their cultural face in the world have no right later to complain of how they are seen within it.

This article is a translation from The New Arab's Arabic-language sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. Read the original here

Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari is a Qatari diplomat and politician. Dr. Al-Kuwari serves as State Minister with the rank of Deputy Prime Minister. He is currently the President of Qatar National Library and was formerly the Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage of Qatar.

Follow him on X @alkawari4unesco and Instagram: @hamadaaalkawari

Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@alaraby.co.uk

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.