Like for example, do you agree with his analysis, is his analysis accurate and since this was made in 2013, do they still resonate with Norway ?

by Nessieinternational

24 comments

  2. and beeing on the receiving end of the stick made working together a necessity for quite some time in history.

  3. He visited in the 70s when his statements were correct. The population makeup has changed a lot since then.

    I’d say these comments apply more to Eastern Europe now. You still have more homogeneous populations there.

  6. What kind of racist propaganda is this?
    No, we are not just one tribe here. I’m ethnically Norwegian and atheist but I’ve got more in common with some immigrants that come here than most of our home grown radical right wing racists shitheads.

    We’re far from just being one tribe.
    I doubt this was ever the case. I know that ethnic Norwegians from the north of Norway used to be treated badly by ethnic Norwegians in Oslo a few decades back, before my time. (Just as an example.)

  7. Norway was mostly racially homogenous in the 8th century also. Didn’t stop a large part of the population fleeing to Iceland over the prospect over founding the kingdom of Norway, because they didn’t want to pay taxes and loose their little fiefdoms scattered all over the place.

    It’s just nonsense, and relies on the myth that people with a different skin color can’t integrate into the existing society and will forever be a separate part, creating a fractured, non cohesive society.

    Back when this country actually practiced conscription I served with a few immigrants and children of immigrants. They where no different then the rest of us. I even served with a Turkish guy that had fled Turkey as a refugee because he didn’t want to fight the kurds, and voluntarily signed up here because he felt he wanted to do his part for this country, like all the other eligible native Norwegians of military age.

    It’s all about mindset, nothing to do with skin color.

  8. Singaporean here.

    I wish people stopped making these completely shallow references to LKY. Lee was many things, and some of his beliefs have simply not aged well. The most obvious is his racial views, which are partially reflected in the extract above.

    Just as an example – Lee believed that Malays (the actual indigenous people of Singapore) were naturally less productive than Chinese (immigrants). Or in other words, that Singapore has succeeded not because, but *despite* its multi-cultural society. I can’t remember the exact quote here but he has stated something along the lines of how nation building would be so much better if the country was majority Chinese. He also loved the Jews and the Japanese as examples of productive ethnic groups.

    I don’t blame Lee directly for these views. They are the product of his time. But none of this is applicable today.

  9. So you’re saying after the oil fund things changed? Strange!….

  10. There’s a lot that can be said about this, and not much of it would be very interesting.

    However, I want to address one thing I’ve always found grating. Norway has two parliaments (Sami and Norwegian), we have three official written languages (Sami, Norwegian, Neo-Norwegian) and two official spoken languages (Norwegian and Sami). But we also officially recognize that there are three sami languages as well as three further languages having a long national history (kvensk, romani and romanes). About 67% are formally part of the largest religion, which is a lower percentage belonging to the majority religion than in, for example, the US (77%), Thailand (93%) or India (80%), to mention a few countries known for diversity. Politically we have everything from straight up communists to Trump supporters representing in our parliament.

    But somehow we are held up as an example of a homogenous society?

    I think it’s much more interesting to ask why do a Christian west-coaster writing and reading neo-Norwegian, a secular city-dweller in Oslo and a Sami in Kautokeino all comfortably feel part of the same group as Norwegians. I actually don’t have a good answer, but I know it’s not because I – as a secular city boy – has a lot in common with a religious person from the bible belt. But I wouldn’t even consider that guy as less Norwegian than me, so it’s not that. I actually think it is – as unpopular as this might be – because we are a tolerant and inclusive society. But even that doesn’t answer it… because *why* are we tolerant and inclusive?

    When I read things like the stuff in the post, it reminds me of westerners who say they can’t tell Chinese people apart. It’s just out-group homogeneity bias – we all tend to look at other groups as more similar internally than the groups we belong to ourselves. So basically this dude racked up in Norway, saw a lot of white people, and that was similar enough for him.

  11. Agreed.
    I’m Swedish and work here in Norway now. I don’t plan on going back. The part about immigration is true, you lose the identity of your country when you bring in mass amounts of different tribes with completely different belief systems and ways of living.
    Norway is much better in that regard but must be careful or the same issues as in Sweden will arise here as well.

  12. I stopped reading after “homogenous populations” knowing that whatever follows is just ignorant racism that is completely detached from reality.

  13. His thoughts and opinions probably aren’t very applicable today, as we’re no longer notably homogeneous, and this may be a controversial opinion, but I don’t think we have significantly more togetherness or patriotism than any other country either. We do still have wealth and a largely outstanding welfare system, though.

    We do love our constitutional day and all, but I get the impression that national pride isn’t very high these days, compared to when I was young. Just the other day, I was listening to colleagues talk about which country they would move to, if that ever became appealing to them. And it didn’t seem like it was a decision that any of them would hesitate with.

    I like to think that I’m wrong, but in the unlikely scenario that Russia decides to invade us, I wouldn’t count on a lot of volunteer forces in our military. I’m sure I’ll be downvoted for this, but that’s just my impression based on discussing the current state of the country, and people’s general outlook on Norwegian society with friends, family, class mates and colleagues for a few years now. My anecdotal impression is that the national pride is trending in a negative direction.

    And I’m sure there are many reasons for that, but it feels like a very stark contrast to how nationalistic everyone seemed to be when I was growing up during the 90s and early 00s. People tend to take a lot of pride in our high standard of living, but also seem to see that as something that can be moved abroad, and so it isn’t necessarily a source of national pride, but rather a privilege that’s attached to every one of us who has a Norwegian passport.

  14. I’m from norrland in northern sweden and this is definitely NOT true, you can also ask scanians or jamtlanders and they will be even more against this than I am. We are not “one tribe”. That’s only true for urbanized city folks with zero cultural connection (but that’s not unique to scandinavia, that’s a worldwide phenonomen).

    I think Lee Kuan Yew is romanticizing and exoticizing.

  16. In broad strokes, mostly so.

    But some parts do not quite add up.

    1. Business tychoons/ high income individuals: being less likely to flee. A resounding no there. Actual taxation factors being more important. The wealth tax made that abundantly clear (swiss flight/ exclave).

    2. One tribe, no. Never was, always had significant geographic divides. But larger than that you have a strong divide between centrum and periphery, city people and everyone else. Different needs, challenges and realities there.

  17. Mostly nonsense that was either never true or only partially true during a certain point in time. Besides WWII, I really can’t imagine Norway being seen as properly united. To this day you can still feel some issues arise based on being from a different county and the like. The country is too large and unpopulated, so it creates these «cultural holes» that breed division. As a Scandinavian community, I can agree that there is a sense of unity given the history and relations between countries. When it comes to taxation, I can also agree that if the country was small (population) and homogeneous would be a no-brainer to agree with taxation, but right now, with the amount of people exploiting the welfare system, plus those who are foreigners and have no interest in properly participating in society, Norway is just a big round zero.

  18. the idea that homogeneity leads to prosperity is dumb and there are a billion counterexamples in any direction

  19. The top 1% can’t move to Switzerland quickly enough, that’s an update.

  20. He sounds a bit like racism. The feeling of community has nothing to do with the colour of the people. It has to do with the value solidarity. People of Norway saw solidarity as a very important value after the Second World War. Noe most people are focused on individualism and self realisation. In my opinion we need to focus more on solidarity like we did before.

  22. Norwegian and scandinavian society was more homogenous in the 1970s. Although Norway’s Sami ethnical minority was much more expected to assimilate, something the author seems totally unaware of.

    Income equality was probably much lower in the 70s. The author seems to be totally unaware of the way the Norwegian labor market was organized, with a very high degree of unionization, and a strong tri-partite collaboriation, with most of the wages set in central biannual negotiations. This was as far as I know rather similar in the other Nordic countries, although Norway probably had the strongest tripartite culture, going back to the 1930s. This culture is still dominant today, but has weakened. This has a lot to do with structural changes in the labor market. Back in the 70s, a large portion of the the labor force still worked in factories.

    It was very much possible to get filthy rich back then as a capitalist. But a big part of the tripartite culture was based on the idea that the workers should get a fair share of the profits. In return, employers got a very stable and predictable workforce, with a very low degree of conflict. The roots of this culture go back to the 30s. If there’s a case of “Norwegian exceptionalism”, this was probably it.

    And while it is true that tax rates were (and are) nominally higher than many other places, I believe that the main reason they were accepted back then was that most people realized that you got something in return: Free schooling including universities, basically free healthcare, and an intricate system of pensions ensured social stability. If there was a sense of solidarity, it was because it was a social system based on solidarity. The author seems blissfully unaware of these inner workings of Norwegian society.

  23. Stop spamming every country sub, nobody gives a shit outside of Singapore.

  24. I believe in historical materialism, in my opinion it’s the economic and geographical circumstances that model a society, not the other way around.

    Why is Scandinavia so keen on communitarism? Because simply put, especially back in the day, if your society didn’t collectively put the effort to see through the years entire villages and families would starve or freeze to death.

    This is reflected for example in medieval Scandinavian laws and customs which for example never saw the farmers being tied to a strip of land, not because the land owners were exceptionally enlightened but because they didn’t have the bargaining power to impose a strict feudal system in the first place.

    A hostile weather and a scarce population made so that a hierarchical society couldn’t stand on solid ground, in mainland Europe one must wait for the advent of the bubonic plague that decimated the population and therefore created a labour shortage with proto-capitalist being forced to raise wages just to “steal” labourers from rival parties thus enriching the lower classes creating a sort of verticality in standards of lives.

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