A spokesman for the Sweden Democrats (currently at an all-time high of close to 10% in the polls) insisted to me that immigrants were "more prone to violence". The people who live in neighboring countries around the world, like in Scandinavia, often have many similarities. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg talks speaks during a joint press with Sweden and Finland's Foreign ministers after their meeting at the Nato headquarters in Brussels on January 24, 2022 . Video, Record numbers of guide dog volunteers after BBC story, The researchers behind In the Shadow of Happiness looked at data collected across five years, Time, not material goods, 'raises happiness', one of the report's authors, Michael Birkjaer, told the Guardian newspaper. I met with ke Daun, Sweden's most venerable ethnologist. Yes, they want to beat each other and claim victory at whatever they are doing, however, there is no ill will toward others or a collective desire for something harmful to happen to anyone. Here is a brief look at the background and implications of their decisions. Swedish media have said a final government decision will be made on Monday, with a formal application for membership to be submitted shortly afterwards. Turkish Armed Forces | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images. Some Norwegians have negative views towards their neighbors, similar to adjacent countries in other regions of the world because past hostilities sometimes result in negative present-day stereotypes. Everyone understands that Finland is not Russian, despite being part of the Russian Empire for 108 years. Christian started Scandinavia Facts to explore his family heritage, raise awareness of one of his academic interests as a professor, and civilly promote the region. Related to the disunity, some people have the perception that Norwegians hate their Swedish and Danish neighbors. Sweden denies this. Turkey has long accused Nordic countries, in particular Sweden, of harboring extremist Kurdish groups and supporters of Fethullah Glen, the U.S.-based preacher whose supporters Ankara says . Why it matters: A formal objection by Turkey would derail Finland and Sweden's expected NATO applications, which must be approved by all 30 NATO allies. 11 Really Good Reasons Why You Should Visit land, https://www.hofstede-insights.com/product/compare-countries/, http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/images/Culture_Map_2017_conclusive.png, http://www.fallintofinland.com/culture/how-to-communicate-with-a-finn/, http://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/mondays_papers_mp_absences_athletes_drinking_biathlon_bronze_norovirus_hunt/9469182, https://www.infopankki.fi/en/living-in-finland/finnish-and-swedish/finnish-online. Though 2013 saw a record number of asylum applications to Norway, it granted asylum to fewer than half of them (around 5,000 people), a third of the number that less wealthy Sweden admits (Sweden accepted over 9,000 from Syria alone). To say that Denmark and Sweden are historical rivals would be a vast understatement when looking at the number of conflicts between these two Scandinavian countries. Competition and rivalry exist as well. However, they shared one monarch and had a single foreign policy run by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign . It has been hundreds of years since the Danes and Swedes last took up arms against each other, and just about the only modern-day hostilities between them involve words, attitudes, and even volleys of tweets during an epic social media dust-up. The Swedes, on the other hand, if asked to describe the good people of Denmark, might depict the Danes as happy-go-lucky people who, for better or worse, wear their emotions on their sleeves. 2023 CNBC LLC. For example, a Norwegian who is hyper competitive about, A Norwegian who is passionate about social issues, may have a national pride when it comes to comparisons of tolerance or the strength and availability of. Among the dissenters in the Monday vote were some of the party's furthest-right members, including Reps . Like the dealer who never touches his own supply, those dirty frackers the Norwegians boast of using only renewable energy sources, all the while amassing the world's largest sovereign wealth fund selling fossil fuels to the rest of us. For much of the Viking Age, the nations of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, as they are known today, did not exist yet. Kurds in Turkey were victims of several massacres in the years following the founding of the modern Turkish state in 1923, and use of the Kurdish language there has been banned in various capacities for much of the last century. Their negative perception isnt necessarily rooted in racial stereotypes. And if you think a move across the North Sea would help you escape the paedophiles, racists, crooks and tax-dodging corporations one reads about in the British media on a daily basis, I'm afraid I must disabuse you of that too. Even ahead of the US. All this is even coming from a Dane/Danskjvlar. The NATO average was estimated at 1.6% last year. Btw, there was a similar thread in r/Nordiccountries recently: r/Nordiccountries/comments/jqwqxt/why_do_nordic_countries_citizens_seem_to_dislike/. 17 May 2022. And Norway isn't the only Scandinavian neighbor barring Swedes, with some exceptions, from visiting this summer. "Swedish women try to moan as little as possible during childbirth and they often ask, when it is all over, whether they screamed very much. Swedish foreign minister: We won't be secure without NATO membership, Sweden and Finland want to join NATO. to learn more. With the formation of the Kalmar Union in 1397, these three Scandinavian nations, along with their respective territories, were ruled by a common monarch, Queen Margrethe I of Denmark. See Why Do Norwegians Hate Swedes and Danes? Finland's is a reactive, listening culture, burdened by taboos too many to mention (civil war, second world war and cold war-related, mostly). In the US, they'd have an intervention.". [5]. Sweden, which along with Finland is seeking entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has been one of Europe's most willing recipients of migrants fleeing conflict, including Kurds.. Others believe that Erdogan ultimately will not block Sweden and Finland's NATO memberships, but instead is seeking to improve his waning domestic popularity. Sweden and Finland are set formally to end decades of neutrality and join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in a historic breakthrough for the alliance that deals a blow to Russian. In these ways, it may be possible to compare the competition among the countries to sibling rivalries. The PKK have carried out scores of attacks within Turkey. No but seriously what did we do? Ethnic minorities living in Nordic countries were less happy, Very religious people were more likely to be happier, No difference was found between people living in the country and those in cities. The reasons why are complicated, emotional and steeped in decades ofoftenviolent history. See Do Swedes Actually Like Surstromming? If Scandinavia was the Weasley family, Sweden would be Percy. Youth unemployment is higher than the UK's and higher than the EU average; integration is an ongoing challenge; and as with Norway and Denmark, the Swedish right is on the rise. DeSantis won't say he's running. As depicted in this excellent long-running web comic, the typical Swede is seen as rich, arrogant, and tech-savvy. The same is true of Danish and Swedish people. As it turns out, this one comprises both truth and fiction. If you want a serious answer to the question. We've been dicks to all our neighbors historically, and we still try to export our policies as "the Swedish model", as if they were inherently superior to everything else. A Norwegian who is passionate about winter sports, may have a national pride when it comes to comparisons about speed skating or cross-country skiing. Sweden's Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, referencing the unrealistic demands that Turkey is making, said on January 9 that, "Turkey both confirms that we did what we said we would do, but they also say they want things we can't and don't want . Please see the About page for details. According to the 2019 iteration of the World Happiness Report, Denmark ranked as the second happiest nation in the world, and Sweden ranked a very respectable seventh in the world (in fact, all 5 Nordic countries ranked within the top ten). There remains a disturbing Islamophobic sub-subculture in Norway. Why, asks one expert, does everybody think the Nordic region is a utopia? Rent is much more expensive in Norway than Sweden, up to 32% higher in fact. It's also a reflection of differing definitions over who and what constitutes intolerable Kurdish extremism," Ibish said. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns. Well, they do have high levels of trust and social cohesion, and do very nicely from industrial pork products, but according to the OECD they also work fewer hours per year than most of the rest of the world. Luckily, judging by a recent journey I took with my eldest son the length of the country by train, the place appears to be 99% trees. It asked people to mark their satisfaction with life out of 10 - with people above a seven categorised as thriving, fives and sixes as struggling and anyone scoring below a four deemed to be suffering. The Danes are aggressively jingoistic, waving their red-and-white dannebrog at the slightest provocation. The Swedes are, he says, "highly adept at insulating themselves from each other". While probably done in good fun and certainly entertaining, this very public exchange of barbs and ribbing does validate the notion that the rivalry between the Danes and Swedes, while certainly not rising to the level of centuries past, does still exist. Another way to look at it is sibling rivalry and family feuds. National pride certainly exists in Scandinavian countries like it does elsewhere in the world. From the military perspective, the addition of Finlands and Swedens armed forces would represent a major boost to Natos assets in northern Europe, filling a hole in the alliances defences by doubling the length of its border with Russia and improving security and stability in the Baltic region. "The next day, people laugh about it. Every nation has a neighbor it dislikes. The same applies in Norway, with Oslo often measuring up as more expensive than places like Bergen. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is a defensive military alliance formed in 1949 by 12 countries including the US, UK and France to counter the threat of postwar Soviet Russian expansion in Europe. Centuries ago, there most certainly was hatred between the nations of Denmark and Sweden, as evidenced by the dozens of wars fought between them. She worked for the tourist board. "Turkey is not happy about the fact that they suddenly become good guys just because they came in handy against ISIS.". Neighboring countries sometimes seek the same land and water use. The Norwegians were allowed to maintain their parliament, and their own army and judiciary. Sweden's foreign ministry declined to comment on Erdogan's accusations when contacted by CNBC. But to say that Danes and Swedes hate each other today would be a gross overstatement despite the occasional war of words and disparaging remarks. Denmark, Sweden and Norway have eased or eliminated all of their COVID-19 related restrictions, but posts falsely claiming this means their governments stopped believing in the pandemic or . According to the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment rankings (Pisa), Denmark's schools lag behind even the UK's. Why do Sweden and Finland have a bitter relationship? For Hakki Akil, a former Turkish ambassador, the Turkish perspective is "very simple. I hear Taggart's on again! When it comes to Finland, Turkey's opposition to it joining NATO appears to be more by association the country has a far smaller Kurdish population than Sweden, but its foreign policy tends to be similar. So you know, only we can criticize each other, and if other countries try it, they need to shut up. Enough with the impractical minimalist interiors. Icelands epic landscapes draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Whether it is Denmark's happiness, its restaurants, or TV dramas; Sweden's gender equality, crime novels and retail giants; Finland's schools; Norway's oil wealth and weird songs about foxes; or Iceland's bounce-back from the financial abyss, we have an insatiable appetite for positive Nordic news stories. Yet, it is sometimes the case that neighboring countries, though their people can be similar, have more conflict with each other, not less. What began as a seemingly harmless comment regarding home dcor devolved into a heated exchange of increasingly hostile tweets between the Danes and their Swedish counterparts: Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and the hurling of insults came to an end. Last Wednesday in Stockholm, the prime ministers of Sweden and Finland, countries where neutrality and military non-alliance are deeply woven into their cultures, shocked the world by issuing a. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said they would be welcomed with open arms if they do apply and that the accession process would be quick, although formal ratification by all the alliances members could take several months. Their big new drama series, Arvingerne (The Legacy, when it comes to BBC4 later this year) is stunning, but the reality of prime-time Danish TV is day-to-day, wall-to-wall reruns of 15-year-old episodes of Midsomer Murders and documentaries on pig welfare. The Danes of course also have highest taxes in the world (though only the sixth-highest wages hence the debt, I guess). Photograph: AFP/Getty Images, Finns having a quiet drink Photograph: Martti Kainulainen/REX, A car burning after riots in Stockholm in 2013. Those offshore windmills may look impressive as you land at Kastrup, but Denmark burns an awful lot of coal. As we reported in a fact-check comparing Sweden with Italy, Spain and the . 3. Sweden and Finland have also said they will not approve the repatriation of 33 people that Turkey has accused of links to terrorism. Still, NATO may face gridlock for some time if Erdogan is not satisfied with Sweden and Finland's responses to his demands. Their residents have a healthy pride in their people, history, and social priorities. (Also see Why Do Doors Open Outward in Sweden?). Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Norway the nice side, at least. The simple truth of the matter is that despite hundreds of years of vying for regional supremacy with great loss of life on both sides, modern Danes and Swedes do not hate each other. Schools rein in higher achievers for the sake of the less gifted; "elite" is a dirty word; displays of success, ambition or wealth are frowned upon. I was told we'd run out of time. The PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by Turkey, as well as by the U.S., Canada, Australia and the European Union. 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