Talk:Sweden

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World Rankings

There is a broken link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden#International_rankings under "CIA World Factbook – life expectancy 2008 9th 223 [8]" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hamhill (talk • contribs) 09:05, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

External links

There is a typo on "Invest in Sweden Agency". Instead of "www.isa.se" it says "www.is.se" which leads to Internationella Skolorna. --Leord (talk) 17:32, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Nagatively Biased description of Sweden during WWII

The article claims Sweden was under "German influence" during WWII, which is not really true, although the country was to some extent cut off. The article then goes on and claims Sweden "collaborated with Hitler" which sounds weasel-worded to me. Then, the article talks about Swedish soldiers in the Wehrmacht, surely to paint the picture as dark as possible. I think it is all very biased, partly off topic, and should be re-written altogether. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bugfindersolas (talk • contribs) 12:31, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I actually would agree on that. Even though it's commonly known that the critisism that have been aimed towards Sweden, for example because of some of the things mentioned here in the article, are quite true, the text presented here seems a bit odd to me too. As said of course Sweden was partly influenced by Germany, but not to the extent that this article makes it seem to be. And some of the facts are also kind of irrelevant, for example the part about the Swedish citizens that joined the Waffen-SS. The number of people that did this was probably somewhere between 130-300, and if I remember right, travelled to Norway to do so and totally against the neutral policy of Sweden. Though this text makes it seem as though a vast number of eager Swedish men stormed into Soviet Russia all of a sudden, when, for example the number of Norwegians that did this was approx 10 000. And now I'm not trying to make it sound like Sweden played no part, though, I would also prefer a more balanced article that presented more relevant facts in a more correct way. It should definitely be rewritten, or, that is my opinion. --Qszet (talk) 00:30, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The proper term would reasonably be that the Swedish government "made concessions" to Nazi Germany, as the "collaboration" is so much tied to activites during an occupation, usually of a kind which gets the collaborator prosecuted or executed after the war. The concessions have definitely led to criticism, but if you factor out the hindsight of Hitler losing WWII, the Swedish government's WWII politics looks very much like cautious realpolitik - enough concessions to the side that had the upper hand to be able to stay out of the war, but also to be able to keep up enough foreign trade to keep the domestic armaments industry and food production running. Tomas e (talk) 19:52, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Are we going to change the name of the war also? WW stands for World War. If you provide support to one side, it is to the detriment of the opposition. If Hitler received any support from Sweden at a time when it was providing no support to the Allies, it cannot be defined as neutrality. 67.187.255.117 (talk) 01:16, 29 January 2009 (UTC) Seri

Ignore above comment, that level of discussion don't even justify a reply. —Krm500 ^{(Communicate!)} 03:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Just removed some obvious vandalizing of the "World Wars" section by 208.179.150.68. Please note that this is not the appropriate way to make an edit to a Wikipedia article, and banners should never be removed unless you can present a valid reason for doing so. I was in no way intending to make som kind of political statement or whatever you should call it by doing this, as some people probably would think. Or well, maybe not a political statement, though as this was aimed at radically change the view of the text in this article. That is not at all what (at least I am) trying to do. But I do think that the text in question was badly written and did not entirely present facts in a completely unbiased way. So I suggest that the NPOV-banner should remain in it's place until edits have been done, or the dispute solved in some other way. --Qszet (talk) 18:43, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Most visited country in Northern Europe?

The opening section states that "Sweden is the most visited country in Northern Europe with 5,2 million visitors in 2007". The page for Northern Europe (linked to in the opening section) includes the UK as part of Northern Europe, and the source for this line is a page that sates the UK received 30 million visitors in 2007, far more than Sweden. I am going to change the sentence to "Sweden is the most visited country in Scandinavia with 5,2 million visitors in 2007" WhizzBang (talk) 08:33, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

The military section has a rather significant typo, it says Ireland is a member of the Nordic Batle Group, it must be Iceland. I cant change it because its locked 137.222.215.9 (talk) 19:24, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

No, Ireland is a member of the Nordic Battle Group, Iceland doesn't have an army. McGnome (talk) 19:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The cause of this error is probably the fact that most Scandinavians don't regard the British (and the Irish) islands as a part of Northern Europe. --94.255.146.181 (talk) 00:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Unhappy with the term "ethnic Swedes"

Hi, I'm all not that happy with the term "ethnic Swedes". It feels a bit like saying "ethnic American", "ethnic Canadian" or "ethnic British". Neither do the sources use the term "ethnic Swede" but rather refer to persons born outside Sweden, with a parent born outside Sweden or who are not Swedish citizens. I would prefer to use these more precise and correct terms. Any comments before I change?Osli73 (talk) 00:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It shouldn't feel at all like "ethnic American" or "ethnic Canadian", since Sweden is a clearly defined Old World nation-state, not an ethnically mixed former colony or a union of nation-states like Britain. An ethnic American is an Amerindian, by the way. Do "ethnic Russians", "ethnic Germans", "ethnic Greeks", "ethnic Spaniards", etc. sound awkward to you as well? --Humanophage (talk) 02:54, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

It might feel awkward to use such terms from a swede's point of view as this is quite taboo in Sweden, but I'm quite sure there is generally more tolerance to such things in the rest of the world. Though I am suspicious about the source of this information regarding ethnicity and numbers, as it is a diffuse subject. --94.255.146.181 (talk) 00:06, 17 December 2008 (UTC) Emil R

"Neither do the sources use the term "ethnic Swede" but rather refer to persons born outside Sweden, with a parent born outside Sweden or who are not Swedish citizens."

That is because it is a simplification. There are no sources that present the true amount of ethnic Swedes in Sweden - mostly because of the problem in defining an "ethnic Swede". However, by looking at where the parents are born you can get an pretty good indicium, or average of the general population.

Your example is ridicules. There are ethnic Swedes in America, whom are still Americans. There are ethnic Swedes living in Finland, and they are still Swedish. Sweden is an national state, and like someone above said; not an ethnically mixed former colony or a union of nation-states like Britain. The only reason why you would like to change the term is because you want to poisen Wikipedia with "political correct" bullsh*t. Well, obviously I want Wikipedia to continue as a neutral portal that does not give into political motives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.226.201.194 (talk) 23:01, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Also there are different numbers in the text compared to the fact sheet, the text says that 87% (with a vaguely related reference to SCB) are ethnic Swedes while the fact sheet says 80% (without reference). 87% seems to be on the high side, we are not that inbred, while 80% is a bit on the low side. 94.255.184.86 (talk) 19:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Ethnic Swedes is useable and valid term. Is there any reason as to why Swedes - as opposed to every known human society/group in recent history - should not have an ethnicity? According to a number of studies on national cultures and cultural differences Swedes are more - not less - culturally differentiated than average groups are (see data from World Values Survey), so there is no reason on that basis not use the term. I would say that a figure of 80 % of the population being ethnically Swedish is fairly accurate, more accurate than 87 %, which is far too low today. It is diffcult however, since there is no official statistics on the matter. Koyos (talk) 00:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

About swedes in operation barbarossa

suppsodly there was only one swede participating in operation barbarossa, Ingemar Somberg who served at first in SS Panzer Division Wiking. the article suggest that there were more swedes participating in operation barbarossa, to support this claim it should present a valid source. there were only about 200-300 swedish volunteers in the SS, and almost all of them joined after 1941. "Swedish volunteers in Nazi SS units were among the first to invade the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa" please change it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Conda (talk • contribs) 23:15, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Economic performance

In the section about the modern political situation, I strongly disagree with the phrase "However, poor economic performance since the beginning of the 1970s, and especially the crisis at the beginning of the 1990s, have forced Sweden to reform its political system to become more like other European countries.". That is a politically biased statement that should be changed or removed. 83.226.118.49 (talk) 20:14, 23 January 2009 (UTC) lauren mcdowall wiz here .!! 27/1/09

Is it really part of foreign policy?

What influence does this comment at the end of foreign policy have? "American actress Jessica Alba came under scrutiny in early 2009 for telling a reporter to "be neutral about it. Be Sweden." It was alleged by Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly as well as editorial gossip network, TMZ, that she meant to say Switzerland. Alba defended herself in a subsequent web blog by citing this Sweden Wikipedia entry."

Though an interesting tidbit, I believe should be under a separate heading. 65.188.211.70 (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Quasi-prohibition?

Alcohol is heavily taxed in a mostly unsuccessful attempt to discourage alcoholism. This isn't really addressed in the article, though. Why not? --98.232.180.37 (talk) 08:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)