Slovenia Gets its First Mosque

More than five years ago we posted an article about the traditional resistance of Slovenians to Islamization, and the widespread opposition to the building of the country’s first mosque.

Since then the wind has shifted in Slovenia. A new party swept into power in last year’s elections, and Slovenia is now ready to join Modern Multicultural Europe. A tangible sign of the new, more inclusive Slovenia will be the construction of the country’s first mosque.

JLH has translated an article that was published last December in M-MEDIA Diversity Mediawatch Austria. The translator includes this note:

Slovenia, as Balkans-watchers know, is tucked into the northwest corner of the former Yugoslavia, but is not considered part of the Balkans. It has been closely tied to Austria since the days of the empire — Catholic, conservative, more or less minding its own business.

Some will recall that the powerful Serbian army marched through Croatia and deep into Slovenia. The Slovenes quietly armed and stood by until the Serbs decided they could gain nothing by wasting manpower so far from where the war was raging, and simply left. The Slovenes, so far as I know, never had any part in the Serbo-Croat hostilities. Recently, they have gone their quiet way, keeping close ties with Vienna.

Their conservative Catholicism and a smaller per capita number of Muslims apparently suppressed the kind of intimidation and aggressive demands seen from imams in Western Europe. A new government, with "good intentions,” and a policy of secular tolerance may be setting a "kinder and gentler” path to where the multi-culti believers of the West have gone before. It would be nice to think not, but the history of niceness and tolerance for Islam is not encouraging (...)