The inspiration for penning this article is the recent research by the author about Scandinavian / Nordic culture in attempts to discover a better place / country in which to live and work in harmony with the surrounding environment. Having lived in an extremely negative society such as Malaysia with increasing negativity in the living environment caused by factors such as corruption at alarming and distressing levels which has evidenced to have impacted the economy to the detriment of the majority of the citizens; racial prejudice / discrimination; a culture of high levels of intolerance; a predominantly chauvinistic society and culture; hypocrisy in efforts to project to the external international environment that it is a raving success model for multiethnic co-existence in a state of perpetual and uninterrupted harmony (in spite of the blatant and conspicuous abuses receiving international attention in the media on a daily basis); a high degree of inequality amongst racial groups as a result of policies and laws which promote and approve racial and gender discrimination; an egoistic culture focused upon racial promotion of the majority races of people and self-aggrandizing to the exclusion of the minority race of Indian / Sri Lankan people especially the marginalization of highly educated professionals of this race of people, the author of this article has derived inspiration from the consistent success of these Scandinavian / Nordic countries such as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland.
THE GREAT INEQUALITY DIVIDE
In a world which is seen to increasingly slide towards greater inequality overall in terms of equal access to education, access to equal employment opportunities, access to equal opportunities to obtain good housing, equal opportunities to pursue any economic benefits on the basis of merit, it is apparent that uncontrolled capitalism and free market enterprise without safeguards to ensure abuses do not happen, globalization, modernization has also brought about great evils in widening the inequality gap. Current statistics indicate that as of 2015, 62 of the world's richest people owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the world's population. This alarming state of affairs has been fueled by tax havens, loopholes and subsidies that the majority of ordinary, non-privileged people lack access to. In some countries and cultures such as Malaysia, the concept of a globalized world which should increasingly gravitate towards embracing diversity, merit and inclusiveness is far from being embraced as a result of the prevalence and predominance of racial ego and the feeling of being special based upon racial criteria and hence, be purportedly deserving of special privileges which results in blatant and diabolical discriminatory practices which have the real effect of crippling the progress, survival and livelihood of minority race of peoples, where some are clearly more disadvantaged by the system premised upon distortions than others.
The fact of these modern and current day realities is creating much strife, hardship, imbalance and a challenge to survival on a basic level in an age and era where there should no longer be problems such as these as a result of the advent of technology and its easy access to the world. Not many parts of the world are cognizant to the needs of the people and care about it enough to develop and manage a corrupt free system that takes care of the masses and their welfare. It is precisely for these reasons that the rest of the world in general should aspire to emulate the Scandinavian model of a welfare state and collectivist society.
THE POSITIVE / ADMIRABLE ATTRIBUTES OF SCANDINAVIAN CULTURE
The principles upon which the Scandinavian culture / nations are built and premised upon is the recognition of the need to take care of everyone as best and as achievable as possible equally by adopting principles which promote and uphold gender and racial equality; the recognition of the importance of every citizen towards the contribution to the nation; shunning emphasis upon individual achievement and personal pride; dispensing with the importance of the self towards embracing collectivism and success as a concerted and collective effort. The culture is basically one steeped in taking pride in a humble attitude towards success and achievement and recognizing the role that everyone plays in contributing to the building and success of a nation.
The success in such neutral ideology is evidenced by the fact of the generally low crime rates among the natives of these Nordic nations, high happiness index, high quality of life where a work-life balance is a feature, high quality of education, consistently high GDP index. Hence, even the fact of high taxes is bearable when the positive attributes collectively outweigh some natural ensuing drawbacks. To maintain such a self-sustaining culture, there is naturally a need for a high degree of conformity to the system and to adopt behavior that is restrained from violating the principles that form the basis of the culture. Thus, some restraint in self-expression would naturally be in order for the greater collective benefit of those nations especially in recent decades where those nations are seen to have become more diverse with the presence of immigrants and asylum seekers.
LAW OF JANTE
Scandinavian cultural beliefs are embedded in the Law of Jante or Janteloven as it is referred to in Danish and Norwegian and its partner in principle, lagom. These concepts / ideologies are intrinsic to Scandinavian / Nordic cultures and form the basis of these cultures at all levels. The Jante Law as a concept or ideology had been created by the Dano-Norwegian author, Aksel Sandemose, who, in his novel ‘A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks (En flyktning krysser sitt spor, 1933)', identified the Law of Jante as the ten following rules:
- You're not to think you are anything special.
- You're not to think you are as good as we are.
- You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
- You're not to convince yourself that you are better than we are.
- You're not to think you know more than we do.
- You're not to think you are more important than we are.
- You're not to think you are good at anything.
- You're not to laugh at us.
- You're not to think anyone cares about you.
- You're not to think you can teach us anything.
From these tenets that underlie modesty and humility, it is clearly apparent that this Code prescribes egalitarianism, collectivism, homogeneity and conformity as cherished and upheld values to be protected and practiced by its citizens. Hence, self-aggrandizing, attempts to derive personal credit, behaving in a manner to suggest that one is superior to others are despised and loathed forms of behavior. This model is seen to have had positive results in homogenous nations like the Nordic nations and even with increased diversity with the influx of foreign immigrants, asylum seekers etc., it remains a rule of thumb to be adhered to by these foreigners who are expected to assimilate well with the existing culture and norms of these Scandinavian / Nordic nations.
It has been observed that adherence to the Law of Jante has even resulted in matters involving racial statistics in relation to the tabulation of the commission of crimes being unavailable as tracking in this manner is also perceived to be discriminatory towards citizens as forming racial stereotypes and the propensity to be persecuted for this and in a neutral culture, such things are simply not done as the sentiment is to treat everyone equally.
