Life in Greater Scandinavia

Up here, north of most of the world, there are things happening...

Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash

I bet you live somewhere in the world – most people do :)

I also bet that you hear a lot of news and get a lot of cultural input from some parts of the world, but much less from others.

There are some cultural centers that seem to run off with all the attention. And some political power hubs, where all the big things are happening – from where war and peace is decided upon, life and death for most of us, and the world economy controlled.

And then there are some spots on Earth that seem to just be there, without having much influence, not much significance. They are not centers for anything. You have heard of these spots, and you may know something about them, but they’re not likely to be on your mind very often unless you live there.

Scandinavia is such a spot. It is actually more than one, as it consists of several separate countries, but they also share something common: the relative peace and quiet, relative easy life for most people, and relative lack of significance for most people in the world who do not live here.

Each Scandinavian country tends to feel insignificant as well. Most of what is happening here is a reaction to something that happens in the world, while only a few things are truly invented here, be it technology or societal ideas. As a reaction, there are some strong national elements in the ways people of Scandinavia see the world around them – they often become overly interested in sports results for “their” teams within several sports, and they pay an unreasonable attention to locally produced movies.

A Scandinavian newspaper will have something about the USA, about Russia, and about China somewhere on the front page. At times, news from these centers will almost fill out the front page, but even then, there will be at least one or two teasers in the corner for something local, like the birthday of Denmark’s oldest, or the decision of a mayor in a small town to aim for re-election.

A Scandinavian will live with this mix of big world news and small local news, often unbalanced, paying much more attention to the local stuff than the international news.

Big news here is when someone local is appointed to a big job in the UN or similar, or gets a top job in a big, international company. Then we all feel that we can do that, or at least some of us, even though we don’t have such high positions locally. But we are also skilled and capable of doing big things, we then think, for a moment offering somewhat of a countering of the feeling of being insignificant.

Where is this place, Scandinavia?

Historically, you can find evidence that it should consist of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, sometimes paying attention to the associated areas and countries like Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard, and various other places, and sometimes including Finland as well.

The “Scandinavian peninsula” is often used as a kind of frame for Scandinavia, but only Norway and Sweden are today placed on that peninsula, so it’s a bad way of describing it. In fact, borders have moved many times in history, and the connection between people have been strengthened by national ties, or weakened, and the feeling of being interconnected as one Scandinavia next to being nationals of a single country has varied, also in regard to geography. Personally, I include Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in my definition of Scandinavia, because that’s what many people there want, and that’s how they think.

All of this to be found at the top of Europe. Up here, you’ll also find Russia, perhaps including Belarus, depending on how you measure it, but they do not today see themselves as part of the same region. The United Kingdom and Ireland plus various island countries in that area somehow are in the North, which is easy to get confirmed by looking at a map, but not included in the Scandinavian North. Politically, demographically, perhaps, and according to self-image, these all make up a separate northern area.

We are very close, in several ways, to the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland. Somewhat to the North, but also more continental.

So, this is where we are, and a bit about how we are thinking, and how people are thinking about us.

And why am I writing all this about Scandinavia?

Because I have been thinking about the situation where almost everything that takes place in the world is based on somewhere else, if not being a very local phenomenon, but then nobody else in the world cares.

There isn’t much activity in the news or social media that equals Scandinavian topics with those from the cultural centers. In fact, even many others of those places in the world that are not centers often get much more attention than Scandinavia. Also by the Scandinavians.

I am myself more of an internationalist, not being more interested in local details than those of other countries, but then again, I am not less interested in the local details either. Still, I have a hard time getting into a good mix of information from all the world, including the part I live in.

So, I thought that I would start writing something, now and then, about what is and what happens in Scandinavia, while trying not to always relate it to some major world events or let it be subordinate to news from everywhere else. At the same time, trying not to get caught by national feelings, trying to avoid a tendency to promote whatever exists here over everything else.

I don’t know how many people in the world would be interested in reading about things that happen in Scandinavia, and I am even a bit uncertain about how many Scandinavians would be that – because, some of those tend to be interested in local stuff written in their local language by locals, so to speak, ruling out the rest of the world as something to be taken care of by others. And other Scandinavians are as internationally minded as me, or even more, and may not want to read about Scandinavia.

But here we go: from now on, an occasional text from this corner of the world may appear, and I’ll find out who may be interested. At least, if nobody will be, I will find the search for topics and their details interesting, so it can be a nice supplement to all the other things I’m writing.