H E RI TAG E
A move to Sweden in 2012 Tatty and her family recently moved from Scotland to Sweden. Half-Swedish and half-English, Tatty grew up in the UK and works as a journalist. This is a journal of her first year in Sweden with her Scottish husband and four young children.
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Maclayhem
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Maclayhem: Thoughts from the Motherland by Tatty Maclay
T
he other day a book in my local library caught my eye – Att överlista Jante, by Tomas Gunnarsson. Jantelagen? Does that still exist? Now, I happen to know a little bit about the concept of Jante Law, and the origins of the expression, but for those of you who may have chosen more useful and/or career-oriented degrees than Scandinavian Studies, I will explain. Danish/Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose first laid out the so-called Laws of Jante in his 1933 book En flykting korsar sitt spår, which is set in the fictional Danish small town of Jante. The ten laws can basically be boiled down to one fundamental tenet: don’t go thinking you’re anything special, and have come to represent the supposedly uniquely Scandinavian mindset that discourages individuality and any kind of pride in, or arrogance about, personal achievement. Firstly, I don’t believe this is a uniquely Scandinavian concept. I don’t know about North America, but I can tell you that this kind of thinking is very much alive and well in Great Britain, it just goes by a different name – ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’; in other countries, it’s known as ‘crab mentality’. Since moving to Sweden, though, I have spotted a tendency among Swedes to pay great attention to anything that sets you apart from the norm – my car’s British numberplate, before I re-registered it, for example, regularly got stared at with an intensity that was totally out of proportion to its actual novelty value. This may be down to Jante, but I think more likely the fact that I live in a small country town where many of the inhabitants may never have seen a non-Swedish numberplate – or a man in a kilt, or a gang of very loud, blonde English-speaking children, for that matter – before. These things would probably get the same reaction in any small-town, from Sweden to Senegal. Another thing I’ve noticed is that the high-profile Swedes (author Björn Ranelid, and two MAW/ blogger-types called Blondinbella and Carolina Gynning spring to mind) who tend to go on about Jantelag, and blame it for any negative views people may have of them, or for not attaining the level of success they feel they otherwise would have, are the ones who are, quite annoying and famous mainly for having huge egos. Of course, there are things Swedes can learn from other countries, about dumping false modesty, blowing your own trumpet and not worrying about other people’s opinions of you, but it seems to me that, while Jante Law may enforce greater humility and conformity, it doesn’t seem to stop truly talented Swedes from achieving success, and there’s even something to be said for its role in keeping massive egos and a misplaced sense of entitlement in check.
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