NWU Student Finds Key Differences in Sweden, but Still Finds Small Instances Reminiscent of Home

It soon becomes evident that many cultural values of the United States differ from those of Sweden.

When I logged onto the computers in the library of my new university in Sweden for the first time, I was taken aback by the agreement I was required to accept. There were all of the standard stipulations: no plagiarism, no illegal downloading, no photocopying entire books. What was shocking was the last section of the contract.

At this university, the students are strictly prohibited from writing or posting anything anti-democratic on the school’s computers. It’s not like I had a burning desire to write “Democracy sucks!” as my profile status, but instantly I thought, “What about freedom of speech?”

Maybe I’m hardwired to view the world this way because I’m a Political Science major, like English majors who complain about the latest Transformers movie because Megan Fox’s character wasn’t developed enough or Psychology majors who can’t give their friends dating advice without a diagnosis thrown in at no additional charge. But I think my response to the agreement was more than just the effect my course of study has had on me. I think I was shocked to see something that conflicted so strongly with an idea that is so entrenched in me, a right I may have taken for granted because of the country in which I grew up.

In my first class here in Sweden, we’ve been discussing current issues in Nordic politics, and in order to understand the current issues, I’ve had to develop a general sense of the political culture that characterizes the Nordic countries. This culture is in many ways very different from that in the United States. In the U.S., the idea of individuality prevails.

Perhaps this is summed up best in the American dream. No matter what someone’s American dream is, it rests in the idea that anything is possible if the individual goes out there and works hard enough to get it.

This in many ways conflicts with the political mindset of a welfare state like Sweden. There is an emphasis on community rather than individualism, an idea that all must give so that the entire country can benefit as a collective group.

Yet the Swedish people still consider individual rights and freedoms to be important, and in this way, there is an inherent conflict in their political system. At what point does an individual’s freedom threaten the goals of the collective community? Can a student write anti-democratic sentiments on his blog in a society built on the notion that all must accept democratic principles?

Ultimately, I hope that my teachers and parents and relatives would be proud that I have actually been learning here in-between the fun I’ve been having. After studying politics with students from all over the world, I have a deeper understanding of the ways political environments and institutions shape everyday life.

Not only do they contribute to the problems countries face, but they shape the lens through which the problems are seen.

Visiting a Swedish McDonald’s is almost like being home, except for a few obvious differences.

“They actually have Big Macs. I might as well be in Lincoln,” I thought on my first McDonalds excursion in a foreign country. They also had an El Nacho, a junior hamburger smothered in nacho cheese and sour cream and topped off with two tortilla chips. This, understandably, felt a little bit less like home, but I had to buy one. Despite the concept of a Mexican cheeseburger from McDonalds being both hilarious and absurd to me, the sandwich was delicious and utterly unrefined in the way greasy food at three o’clock in the morning should be.

Since arriving in Sweden, I’ve been most surprised by two things: how easy it is to forget that I’m in a different country and how the things that do make me remember are the most mundane. Forget the fact that every time I have a conversation with someone who doesn’t speak English as their first language, I spend most of my energy attempting to decipher accents. No, this does not drive home the knowledge that I’m in Sweden. It’s the El Nacho. It’s the small things.

Well, mostly it’s the small things. I can’t tell you with a clean conscience that when I turned to my left after ordering my Big Mac meal with a side of El Nacho, that I wasn’t surprised to see a man bleeding out of a small but deep gash on his forehead. Even more disconcerting was the nonchalant way in which the bleeding guy and the McDonalds waitress handled their exchange of words. I can’t speak a word of Swedish, but I’m certain the exchange went as follows:

Bleeding Guy: I seem to have sliced open my forehead. Do you mind getting me a napkin, so I don’t bleed all over your floor?

McDonalds Girl: Just stand right there and I’ll get you one. And by the way, do you want fries with that laceration?

Before I had too much time to wonder why this man was bleeding from the head, a friend relayed the story to me. Apparently a guy and a girl, each with a group of friends, “posses” if you will, started to get into a heated verbal argument which eventually led to a heated chair-throwing argument between the two “posses.”

Upon relaying this story to me, and seeing the shocked look on my face, my friend told me, “Don’t worry. This stuff happens all the time in McDonalds.” Her reassurance was confirmed when I noticed the nearby security guard roll his eyes as if thinking, “I can’t believe this happens every night” and lethargically shuffle towards the fight which had mostly disbanded by that point.

“Why have I seen so many head wounds during a simple McDonalds trip in a country that is known for caring so much about the welfare of its stereotypically shy and reserved citizens?” I asked myself.