As I watch my two sons, one curled up in bed studiously reading while sipping his cup of Rooibos tea, the other trying to kick a rugby ball off the dog’s head while wearing his pants back to front and inside out (the child, not the dog, although their IQs are remarkably similar) it occurs to me that it’s not fair to compare the two.

The first child was showered with undivided attention, fed gourmet cornichons, and forced to listen to Mozart at bedtime. The second child, his parents completely drained from attempting to raise one child and failing quite miserably, has lived mostly a feral existence, scavenging for forgotten chocolates in couch cushions and challenging the friendly neighbourhood hobo to a high-stakes game of poker.

Despite having the same parents, the two upbringings couldn’t have been more dissimilar, so it’s really not fair to compare the two. And I feel the same can be said of countries. South Africa excels in so many ways. We’re topping the charts for almost all major crimes committed by everyone from our lowliest members of society right through to our political elite. We all try our best, equally. Our renewable energy use is stellar (the reason why matters not), our rugby players swear at a far more fluent rate than any others and in almost any language, and our politicians can dance better than most TikTok stars.

Yet, we still come under fire for not being the best in most of the ‘respected’ categories.

And I blame Finland.

No matter what anyone does around the globe, Finland has done it better. The country tops the world rankings in most key categories:

  • The most stable country in the world? Finland
  • The best education system in the world? Finland
  • The safest country in the world? Finland
  • The most literate country in the world? Finland
  • The cleanest air in the world? Finland
  • The strongest digital knowledge capital in Europe? (I don’t even understand what that is, but it’s…) Finland
  • The most coffee per person in the world? (Not entirely sure why that’s important but it’s…) Finland
  • The most reindeer per capita in the world? Finland (I’m assuming)

Finland even beat out the rest of the world in actual happiness. I’d like to know how that’s measured – presumably the number of empty beer barrels per household. Although Israel made it into the top 10 so I’m not sure how unbiased or updated this list actually is. But you know who else made the list? Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Australia.

You know what those countries all have in common – well except for Australia because there’s no way they’re truly happy living with all our embittered ex-pats – all these countries have no HEAT. It’s easy to be happy and excel in life when your blood is not literally boiling. When it’s 49 degrees in Zululand with a humidity factor of 110%, you’re wearing your business suit and load-shedding kicks in… try singing kumbaya under those conditions.

You know what else these countries have? A tiny fraction of land and a population so small it wouldn’t fit inside Kings Park Stadium. Right now, Finland has 5.5m happy translucent people occupying some 338,450 km². South Africa has around 59.9m Rainbow Nation dwellers occupying 1,219,090 km² of land – and that includes Orania.

You know what else these countries have? Monotony. An overriding singular culture where everyone understands everyone and the only friction they ever experience is fighting over the last reindeer chop at the Yuletide feast. They all speak the same language, wear the same clothes, and dance to ABBA (well the Finnish version thereof).

While we all applaud their incredible strides in learning good, breathing well, and drinking so much coffee, I think it’s time we stopped comparing lingonberries with oranias…