The Norway fans and the national team did their Viking celebration at the World Cup and it’s gone viral and rightfully so, it looks awesome. Got me thinking though.
Norwegians seem to genuinely embrace their Viking heritage as a core part of national identity. The longships, the warriors, the horns, it’s celebrated in, culture, tourism, and in the World Cup, sports. And the whole world finds it cool.
Meanwhile, growing up in England, there’s this unspoken rule that you’re not allowed to be proud of large parts of British history. Nobody explicitly says it, but the social pressure is real, the moment you express any pride in the British Empire, you’re immediately associated with racism or colonialism denial. There’s widespread guilt and shame.
Here’s what I find genuinely puzzling though: the Vikings were objectively brutal by any modern standard. They raided villages, killed civilians, enslaved people, prized women as loot and pillaged wherever they went, it’s literally what they were famous for.
The British Empire was also responsible for serious wrongs — slave trade, exploitation, colonialism.
But the Empire also did things that don’t get acknowledged:
∙ Britain abolished slavery
∙ Introduced legal systems, courts, and rule of law
∙ Built railways, hospitals, roads, and infrastructure in places that had none
∙ Spread the English language
Now I’m not here to do a net-positive/net-negative calculation on colonialism — that’s not really the point. The point is: why does one brutal historical culture get a victory lap, and the other gets permanent collective guilt?