How Swede It Is....

The following is an interesting article for anyone who wants to find out what the typical Swede is like, or what life is like in Sweden. After living here for 9 months, I find most of this stuff to be true....
____________________________
Meet the neighbors - Swedes Dour, Lutheran conservatives? Or communists in Volvos?
By CHRISTOPHER BROWN-HUMES

Here is a joke about Swedes. A group of men are marooned on a desert island. After five days, the British, the French, the Italians and Germans have chopped trees, built huts, fished and cooked; the Swedes are still waiting to be introduced to one another.

The notion that Swedes are shy, taciturn, stiff and reserved is a common one. Critics, and they include many immigrants from warmer climes, go further and argue that Swedes are cold, boring people, who don't know how to have fun. But, says the British film-maker Colin Nutley, who has lived in Sweden for the last 11 years, "to paint Swedes as cold is absolutely unfair.
They are very warm, but it takes time to get to know them."

Ask someone from the UK, for instance, what they know about Sweden, and Volvo and Ikea would certainly rate a mention, alongside the pop group Abba; Bjorn Borg, the 1970s tennis star; Sven-Goran Eriksson, the England football manager; and Ulrika Jonsson, a TV personality. Press them further, and they will say in Sweden the sun never shines, the girls are beautiful, the suicide rate high and pornography and promiscuity widespread. However, there is little real evidence that suicide rates are higher in Sweden than elsewhere. And it's certainly not clear that young Swedes are any more promiscuous than young people elsewhere. Anglo-Saxon culture sometimes confuses nakedness with sex: Swedes are simply less prudish.

Modern Sweden has been shaped by three things: a long Lutheran tradition (hard work, simplicity and honesty, spiked with a certain dourness); the past 70 years, during which the Social Democrats have maintained a virtually unbroken grip on power; and a history of neutrality and non-alliance - an isolationist streak apparent last September when Swedes voted no to the euro.

Swedish social behaviour often operates according to the so-called Jante Law (derived from a fictitious Danish town called Jante, which had its own set of laws acting as a moral code. One was: "Thou shalt not believe thou art something."). "You shouldn't appear to be or pretend to be better than you are. On the contrary, you should minimise your qualities," says Ake Daun, professor of ethnology at Stockholm University and author of Swedish Mentality.

That's why there are so few Rolls-Royces to be found in Sweden - they are too conspicuous a sign of success - and why even the country's richest people don't have flamboyant lifestyles. To be average is to be safe. Underpinning the Jante Law is Sweden's strong egalitarian culture. "It's the most egalitarian society in the world, with the possible exception of Norway," says Sten Westerberg, a partner at Leimdorfer investment bank. High tax rates and a strong welfare state are at the centre of a vast redistributive scheme orchestrated by successive Social Democratic governments since the 1930s. It's a world away from, say, Singapore, which has low taxes and limited welfare. "Swedes are communists driving Volvos," grumbles one foreign businessman.

Redistribution traditionally meant no big differences in Swedish after-tax incomes. That is slowly changing, thanks to the influence of Anglo-Saxon business and pay practices. This in turn has brought envy and resentment. In fact, in Sweden you are far more likely to come across a money scandal than a sex scandal.

Swedes try to avoid conflict in their dealings with others. Blazing rows are rare. The rational takes precedence over the emotional. The word "lagom", which means "not too much, just enough", is often used to describe Swedish moderation. Everyday life is based around consensus and compromise. Foreign businessmen say the result is often slow decision-making and it frustrates them.

It is easy to forget there are just 9 million Swedes. Yet its list of universally recognised multinationals, including Volvo, Ericsson, Ikea, Tetra Pak, Electrolux and Hennes & Mauritz, is one that would stir the pride of a nation with a population many times that. "Swedes are 10 years ahead in some respects and 10 years behind in others," says an executive with a foreign multinational. They may be progressive in sexual matters, such as homosexual marriages, but are very conservative when it comes to alcohol and drugs (alcohol abuse was widespread in the 19th century). Alcohol is still only sold through state-run outlets; pharmacies are also part of a state monopoly. Many people who live in the big cities did not grow up there - and they still have relatives or country cottages in the middle of nowhere.

Swedish pleasures are the same as they have been for centuries: walking in
the forest, sailing their boats, hunting. "It's a very conservative country. Once outside Stockholm, it feels like you are stepping back in time," says Nutley.

FT WEEKEND MAGAZINE - Archetypes
27 March 2004
Financial Times, Page 81
(c) 2004 The Financial Times Limited.