There are a lot of great things about Sweden, but I would never deny the fact that even if we Swedes are honest in business situations etc, many of us display plenty of hypocritical behavior in our attitudes and relations to foreigners and international politics.
Two examples of this hypocrisy:
1. In countries like Denmark, France the UK, a large portion of the natives have had enough of the problems certain Muslim immigrants cause and they’re not afraid to say so in public. In Sweden, the sentiment among ordinary people is the exactly the same, but in contrast to other European countries in the same situation, Swedes are never honest about their true opinions about Muslims (and other foreigners) when sober.
2. During the Vietnam War, Sweden constantly condemned the actions of the US and its allies, while simultaneously exporting tons of weapons, predominantly recoilless rifles (Bofors ‘Carl Gustaf’: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_Carl_Gustaf ) to the evil, Western ‘agressors’.
The leading person behind these perpetual attacks on the US was the former Social Democratic PM Olof Palme. Palme was later murdered by an unknown assassin in 1986 and because of this fate, which 99% of the Swedes do not feel he deserved, it’s more or less impossible to launch a critical analysis of what Palme really did and what values he actually represented even today.
re: Olof Palme
Wow, I didn’t know his assassination had never been solved!?! I remember when it happened, but then never read any follow-up in the years since. Was it definitely believed to be a political assassination and not any garden variety type of murder? I guess if someone comes up to a PM and shoots him dead it can be assumed to be political, but did they have any suspect groups or nation, etc. that might have been behind it? What motive??? Did he piss off the KGB?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Olof_Palme_place_of_death.jpg
