Scandinavia is not exceptional by European standards when it comes to racism and nationalism, and one can readily find examples of both hostility to immigration, chauvinistic nationalism, and racist policies in the histories of the Nordic countries. For example, like most European countries, antisemitism was bad in the Nordic countries before World War II, and nationalist fervor swept through all of the Nordic countries in the nineteenth century, as it did around the world.
The abysmal treatment by Danish authorities of the indigenous population of Greenland is a case in point from the post—World War II period. But Williamson fails to prove first, that the Nordic countries — whether we are talking about state policy or popular sentiment — really do have a consistently worse track record than other countries including the US , and second, that racism played any part in the establishment of the Nordic-style universal welfare states in the twentieth century.
We are given three pieces of information. Yet the stance of the Swedish trade-union confederation, the LO, was evidently not motivated by xenophobia. Rather, the purpose was to defend the living conditions of any worker in Sweden, regardless of race, ethnicity, or citizenship.
Second, we are told that many Jews were rejected when seeking refuge in Sweden in the s and s due to prevalent antisemitism. What Williamson does not tell us is that this picture changed fairly drastically during the war itself, as large numbers of Jews from both Norway and Denmark alongside members of the movements resisting the German occupation escaped to Sweden. A policy of diversity management was introduced some years back in order to counteract tendencies of social exclusion and stereotyping.
More teeth have also been put in to the previously rather weak laws on ethnic discrimination. It is certainly true that the Nordic countries today all have sizable right-wing populist movements dominated by xenophobic sentiment, but this is equally true for most other European countries.
Indeed, if the Nordic-style welfare state is particularly compatible with and conducive to racism, how does one explain the similar growth of xenophobic right-wing populism in France, Switzerland, and the UK, all countries with distinctly different social systems? It is true that we have yet to see strong antiracist and anti-discrimination movements in Scandinavia analogous to the Civil Rights Movement in the US. But on the other hand, one would also be hard-pressed to find examples in modern Nordic history of equivalents of the organized grassroots racism of the Ku Klux Klan or the institutionalized racism of Jim Crow.
We are not suggesting that the Nordic populations are inherently less racist than other populations. We are merely saying that Williamson fails to prove there is anything intrinsically racist or nationalist about the Nordic experience.
Nor did twentieth-century Nordic welfare states make ethnic exclusion a key principle of functioning; on the contrary, they were based on universal principles of entitlement-through-citizenship, and not on internally exclusionary principles based on race or culture. The first step is realizing that many aspects of the development of the Scandinavian welfare state are not that exceptional — they are a variant of the general Western European experience.
The modern Nordic states have been in the fortunate position of developing in the immediate geographical proximity of the core countries of the capitalist world system, while also maintaining political independence. This serendipitous historical circumstance meant that the Nordic countries profited, directly or indirectly, first from the trade flows of early mercantile capitalism and later from industrialism and colonialism.
At first they developed through lucrative trade in primary commodities — processed agricultural goods in Denmark, timber and metal ore in Sweden — but from the late nineteenth century onward they managed to industrialize. As a result, the Nordic countries, like the rest of Northwest Europe, turned out comparatively rich and well-organized. To find out, we hit up an array of Scandinavians, travelers, and diplomats about just what makes these tall, beautiful, Viking children of the north so damn happy all the time.
The No. The time off work the government allows its citizens is absurd by American standards. You see Danes on bicycles early to work, and then they leave late afternoon in order to spend time with family -- that makes for a better environment for kids and adults. Also, the average American vacation lasts about four days. Perhaps because they get so much time away from work, they do take their hours in the office very seriously.
For instance, Scandinavians are less apt to drink during the week -- often not so much as a beer on the couch after a brutal day at the office. It smacks of an unhealthy booze dependency and a divergence from being a good worker and family member.
The Scandinavian premium on living your best life extends into maternity and paternity leave, which are famously the most generous in the world. In the US, mothers get 12 weeks of leave from their job, one of the lowest numbers in the industrialized world. Oh, and that leave is unpaid.
New Swedish parents, according to their national website , get days of paid leave while receiving 80 percent of their salary. Many of these benefits are also available to Swedes who are unemployed. So you can have sequential kids and just not work for, like, three years. Frigidly cold weather is scarcely a deterrent for getting out into nature. Pretty much everyone is in great shape. Even in winter, we always try to find ways to go hiking or walking.
In Scandinavia, school is free, healthcare is basically free, and child daycare is totally free. Scandinavia consists of three countries : Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Some definitions also include Finland and Iceland, but this wider group is more commonly known as the Nordic region.
Scandinavians can more or less understand each other. That said, dialects and strong accents can complicate matters. So much so, that meetings between Danes, Norwegians and Swedes are sometimes conducted in English just to be sure there are no misunderstandings.
That's because…. Scandinavians speak excellent English. Most children in Denmark, Norway and Sweden today grow up at least partly bilingual. English is taught from a young age in school, while British and American TV and movies are hugely popular.
You'll never get lost only speaking English in Scandinavia! All three countries used to be in a union. The Kalmar Union ran with a few interruptions from until A French Army officer became a Scandinavian King. The Frenchman was a career soldier whose life took an unexpected turn due to the Napoleonic Wars, the decline of Swedish power in the Baltic, and the unexpected early death of a Danish prince.
Some historians say this was a time when ideas about a common heritage started to appear. The term became political later.
Scandinavian Airlines was started by the three governments. In , the three governments formed a consortium to cooperate on transatlantic operations for their national airlines. Five years later, the individual airlines merged to form SAS. Things have changed now though, as the Norwegian government recently sold all its shares. Football is a summer sport. In Scandinavia, football soccer is played in the summer, not through the winter as with the major European leagues.
Well, in Sweden and Norway anyway.
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