Many residents are anxiously awaiting the imminent opening of the new Islamic mosque opposite the Don Bosco schools in Vöcklabruck because they fear that it will not only be used for prayer.
For this new building of the Bosniak religious community in Austria will also be an Islamic cultural and educational centre, presumably built with financial support from the Saudis, which will also serve the immigrant Muslims “as a sealing-off space against the secular dominance culture of the infidels”, as the Islam expert Irfan Peci points out. Furthermore, mosques, which are called “masjid” (“places of submission”) in Arabic, also function as gender-segregation sites. “This makes them reproductive institutions of authoritarian Islamic patriarchalism.”
Early protests by the population against the Islamisation of their district town, which included the erection of a large cross, ultimately came to nothing. Not only were people left alone with their justified concerns, but even the State Security Service was called in against the cross erectors and the mainstream media put these people, all peaceful activists, on a par with the Kuxklux clan. “We can only hope,” says a Vöcklabruck resident standing thoughtfully in front of the mosque building, “that one day the people of Vöcklabruck will not regret not having taken more decisive action against it.”
