Sweet brothers? Norwegian-Swedish relations...

Commenting on my blogpost on meatballs, Renny jokingly said that he hates when people mix up the Norwegian meatballs with the "Swedish substitute." In that comment lies a little trace of a peculiar neighbourhood-relation with our "Sweet brother." I'm sure it's not unique for Norway and Sweden, but the relationship between us is quite fascinating.

In any Norwegian joke where Swedes are present, they are portrayed as the dumb ones, coming up with one stupidity after another. There is one joke where two Swedes are on holiday with a Norwegian guy who for some reason went missing. In the police office the two Swedes are asked to describe the Norwegian. The two Swedes think long and hard, then one of them says, "yeah I know - he's got two holes in his bum!" The policeman, who thinks that was a somewhat unusual description ask "and how do you know that then?!" "Because everytime we go somewhere, people are saying: There's that Norwegian with the two assholes!"

So, that's generally the Swedish stereotype. The Danes are not portrayed as dumb, but still not quite up to the Norwegian intellectual level. Finns are not either dumb nor smart, but are portrayed as hard drinkers with a insatiable sexual appetite. Icelanders are generally absent from Norwegian jokes.

It's not only in jokes that the Swedes are the dumb ones. One needs only think of the song "Jag är inta sjuk, jag är bare svensk" (I'm not ill, just Swedish). And there is something comic about how sports journalists seek up Swedish sportsmen for interviewing every time the Norwegians place first, just to rub it in that we won and not they.

Historically, it is at first glance a little strange that the Swedes, and not the Danes are the ones we want to make out to be the stupid ones. Norway has been under both Swedish and Danish yoke, but definitely the longest under Danish. And I dare say that the Danish period was the worst for Norway. Some has even dubbed the period of Danish rule "The night of four hundred years." So, from that perspective, the Danes are the ones that really should have been at the receiving end of our jokes.

Still, the period when Norway was in union with Sweden from 1814 to 1905 was a period of national awakening in Norway - the period when Norwegian-ness took hold in the people's mind. So - although I do not have empirical evidence for this assumption, I do think that the seed of the current-day relationship with Swedes stem from that era. It might also be that we have a eeny-weeny little bit of inferiority complex to Swedes - the Swedes being twice the size of Norway, it was a regional superpower in the Vasa-era (ca. 1521-1654), and more successful in their industry (IKEA, Volvo, Saab, etc.) than us..

Still, at the end of the day, even though we make all kinds of joke about Swedes, on a deeper level, there is no bad feeling between our two countries. The relationship is harmonious and friendly, greatly helped by cultural and linguistic similarities. But as with all relationships between brothers, there is bound to be some competition, and brotherly love is after all.. well, brotherly love..