Mosque or synagogue?

That rampant racism is an ever-present factor in Ukraine is well-known to followers of football. Only last month FIFA ordered Ukraine to play their next World Cup qualifier (against Poland) behind closed doors following racist behaviour by their fans – monkey noises, gestures, Nazi salutes and so on ‒ in the match against San Marino.

And this is just the latest in a long line of shameful incidents.

So it really comes as no great surprise that the admitted murderer of an 82 tear old grandfather in Birmingham, a Muslim, Mohammed Saleem, would be a student extremist from Ukraine. The attack took place just five days after Pavlo Lapshyn arrived in Britain, and was followed by the planting of bombs at three mosques in the West Midlands.

What really struck me was the interview conducted by ITV News with Lapshyn’s father back home, in which it was denied that his son was a murderer, nor that he was a fascist.

“But then, why did he blow up a mosque, not a synagogue?” enquired father, apparently unaware that this disclosed his own profoundly racist attitudes.

Innovation and Islam

I spoke recently about innovation at a conference (organised by Continuum) of family businesses from the Middle East.

Many issues were raised by the delegates, but there was one that seemed to hang in the air unspoken. And it was this: does Islam itself have a dampening effect on innovation?

I have thought about this a good deal in the intervening days – and my tentative answer is that any dampening effect springs not so much from Islam, but rather from the very hierarchical nature of Middle Eastern society. And, of course, this is so often strongly present in family businesses.

After all, Islam is alone among the major religions of the world in having been founded by a trader. And the Koran is supportive of success in business – quite unlike the New Testament, which has practically nothing positive to say about the creation of wealth.

The powerful presence of respect for elders, within a command and control culture, always has a negative impact on the expression of new thinking and new ideas. This is true in all societies where hierarchy is a primary force – in Russia, China, India, the Middle East and elsewhere.

If these countries wish to grow dramatically in their capacity to innovate – which they all do – the question in my mind is not so much how to reduce hierarchy in general, but how to create situations where it is temporarily removed, so that people can express new ideas without fear of reprisal.