Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9412918:


Corson

38
How the North works 12 10, 1:52am

@finnhare I know that Finland was a part of Sweden for a time, but I also know that the Swedes didn't exactly treat you guys all that well.. To put it mildly. It wasn't like they saw the Finnish people as equals and mixed happily with them. Hell, they even made Swedish the official language of everything important. Finnish was for the poor and uneducated etc.

Obviously the actual Swedes (The ones actually belonging to the Scandinavian culture group) living in what's now Finland are of Scandinavian origin but the others aren't. It's not something I'm personally deciding or me trying to keep the Finnish people out or whatever, but it's just a fact like Denmark not being Baltic is a fact. It doesn't matter if I want to be Baltic or whatever. I'm just not. If I move to Latvia and settle there, I'm still Scandinavian. I can't become Baltic no matter what I do.

If my father had a child with another woman, that child would be my half brother/sister because we have the same father. Swedes and non-Swedish Finns don't have that "common father" unless we go so far back that current culture groups didn't even exist yet. Back then we all had that "common father" regardless of skin color, current nationality, current language group etc. etc.
Finns and Swedes from completely different culture groups. Stepbrothers aren't related either btw. If they share a parent, they're half brothers. Not stepbrothers. Stepbrothers have different parents. Obviously it's ideal if stepbrothers like each other so much that they see each other as brothers, but that doesn't make it biologically true, which is what matters when it comes to ethnic and cultural groups. You can't just decide to join another ethnic or cultural group. That's also why they've been able to track the origin of some African Americans back the Africa for example. Just because they're all black doesn't mean they're the same cultural group just like everyone white doesn't belong to the same one either.

To use your own family-example, the Swedish-Finnish relation is more like a roommate (Or stepbrother like you said). Just because you live together for years doesn't make you related. You can become close and call each other brothers etc. but you're really not. You're just really great friends.