Therefore, it is storming around Carl von Linné

In June, a name gathering was started calling for the statue of Carl von Linné to be taken down, and it has so far collected almost 2,000 signatures.

"His words have been quoted when people have explained why they killed, tortured, enslaved, annihilated. At school, however, we have only been able to read a clearly angled story about the side of Carl who taught us about blueberry and spruce, ”the initiator claims in the appeal.

The journalist and author Henrik Arnstad develops the reasoning in a debate article in Aftonbladet.

"Linnaeus was one of the central, most influential and most important racist ideologues in world history," he states.

Arnstad refers to international racism research and argues that Linnaeus' division of humanity into four different groups with distinct characteristics - where Black African, according to Arnstad, was described as repulsive, sluggish and unprepared - laid the foundation for the idea that the white man rules.

Gunnar Broberg is professor emeritus in history of ideas at Lund University and has written books on Carl von Linné. He does not agree with the image of Linnaeus as the father of modern racism.

Linnaeus did not hold the white European highest, according to Gunnar Broberg.

- It's really the American he puts at the top. By that he means "the Indian", who lives free and healthy, medical right, which Linnaeus had learned to appreciate on his trip to the Sami in Lapland.

He also gave different characteristics to the human groups. For example, the European was sanguine, interchangeable and cunning, while the African was considered phlegmatic, cunning and lazy.

Broberg thinks it is a misunderstanding that Linnaeus saw the African as particularly inferior.

- Linnaeus moralizes about man in different contexts, also about the African. That is the case for everyone, says Broberg.

He also believes that Linnaeus was driven by his eagerness to classify and organize all life on earth. Broberg points out scientist Anders Retzius, who began measuring skulls to distinguish human races. Retzius is depicted with statues in several places in Sweden.