The Swedish stereotype

As with all stereotypes there are some things that are true, some that are just misunderstandings, some that are false and some that are wildly exaggerated and generalized. Sweden is a small country with a few neighboring countries (Denmark, Norway, Finland) that has a more complex picture but none the less stereotypes about the typical swede. In the rest of the world the information is generally weak and fact come from either popular culture, some personal interest or just guessing. And of course America’s leisure industry has been of great help forming the law about the Swedish way. These “facts” about Swedish people are a mere conclusion of all those factors together. The reason for me to say this is because a swede is always cautious and careful to not step on anybody’s toes or worst of all; their integrity. 

To keep that up we are diplomatic, and can argue for our sake at the same time we see both sides of the coin. Our society is based upon a individualistic, but at the same time tolerant, life stance. Therefor we are often seen as naïve when we assume that other people will naturally stand up to oral agreements, be punctual and follow social rules and standard even if they are not out spoken. People from other cultures think this makes us arrogant, and cold. To make it worse we have one of the largest personal spaces between each other, going inside of it is one of the easiest ways to make a swede uncomfortable. Cultures where you hug and kiss while greeting will remark that swedes (especially males) take offence in such manner. In Sweden a handshake is sign of warmth and friendship, which to other makes us polite but way to formal.  In shallow conversations we love to talk about the weather and some have a bad habit of turn everything to sarcasm or ironic since we are passive-aggressive.

When we go abroad the Swedish calm will turn into wild Viking berserk. The Swedish alcohol policy is a high taxes (and likewise on everything else) and monopoly of distribution (which is one of many monopolies), which makes most thirsty Norsemen to go haywire as soon as they see cheap and easy accessible alcohol. This makes a lot of locals in especially Greece and Spain to look down on how awfully the swedes behave (maybe only challenged by the brits) on vacation. Not that we can’t drink at home. Most ceremonial days revolves around a mishmash of ancient Norse hedonism, Christian twistery (although we are maybe the most secularized country in the world) and a never ending love for singing, drinking and making fools out of our self’s and then blame Bacchus. We feast at the crawfish party in august, and drink us self’s blind at midsummer, we never dance sober and if you didn’t know anything about Sweden, you probably knew our bastard child Absolut Vodka.

With all this craziness it’s a wonder we get anything done. But somehow we manage to prevail. Our political state is seen as one of the most boring, bureaucratic but most well-functioning ones in the world. The swedes have an extreme fixation for safety-thinking in every situation (can I hear you say Volvo?) and also a highly environmental conscious. Equality is also something we treasure and care for in to absurdity. With an Americans usual problem to separate communism from socialism, he would probably call the whole system for a commie-conspiracy. With such an law abiding population it’s ironic how millions of swedes commits crime every day, in file-sharing, which has become one of the greatest talkies the last couple of years, mainly because of the site The Pirate Bay.

And speaking of famous and infamous phenomena. Hollywood never miss a chance to make bof the complex structure of the yellow and blue flagship IKEA, funny remarks about construction errors spoken in a German accent (always that freakin German accent. Most people say that Swedish sounds like singing, so there is no logic in it). If they don’t confuse Sweden with Switzerland completely, you will get the blond, tall, blue eyed crazy Viking, or the just blond and stupid, Inga, Ulla or Greta.

But there are other sides that appear frequently as well. Apart from ABBA and Roxette, the Gothenburgian metal which became enormous world wide in the 1990s together with some other metal bands sets the standard anywhere. I’ve been called mr Ericson, while my finnish friend was called mr Nokia. People usually know that we are giving some kind of prize to famous people (like Obama they will say, which is funny since it is the Norwegian branch of the Nobel Prize who distributes it).

We have our elks, lingon and meatballs. Our smelly fish surströmming, Astrid Lindgren and Peter Forsberg. But all those things often become blurry for foreigners since we are such a damn small and cold country. At least we have Ingmar Bergman who earns respect and the Swedish sin, which was a stereotype from the 50s that Swedish film only was pornographically related and the country was morally beyond rescue. But in the end we are too insignificant to be payed any further notice about. The Germans finds our nature perversely interesting and our favourite motto is “lagom” which is roughly suffient or just right. The term to be unswedish is a positive remark, which may seem strange but is a way to say that we accept and cherish other cultures and traditions although we may not always be able to engulf them. No, we like to sit in our small red houses with white corners. With our dalecarlian horses, take a “fika” and one of our 1200 cups of coffee in a year and just be quiet. Maybe we finish it off with one bag of the Swedish tobacco snus under our lips, and a dream of the Swedish folkhem.