The Left-Wing Writer's Derisive Laughter When Anti-Swedish Sentiment Is Scrutinized

While Swedish youths are subjected to humiliating robberies, beatings, and abuse in which their ethnicity is used as a weapon, author and former Expressen journalist Sebastian Mattsson responds with nothing but a derisive laugh. This is telling of the culture of silence and relativization that has long surrounded anti-Swedish sentiment.

journalists Pelle Zackrisson announced on Sunday at X that he should investigate anti-Swedish sentiment. He is calling on people who, either personally or through family members, have been targeted at school, at work, in elder care, or in their neighborhoods simply because they are Swedish—or immigrants who have been viewed as ”too Swedish.”.

Zackrisson wants specific details: what happened, when, and where. He offers anonymity and source protection. By Monday morning, the call for information had surpassed 100,000 views. It is an attempt to bring to light what has long been silenced.

Mattsson's response: pure mockery

The next day, the author and reporter at Svensk Damtidning quoted Sebastian Mattsson the appeal on X. No reasoning. No discussion about the victims. No question about why such an investigation is needed. Just:

”Hahahhahahahahaha”

The post was published directly above a call for people who had been subjected to anti-Swedish sentiment. This is not a criticism of the method or the scope of the study. It is a pure mockery of the very idea that the vulnerability of Swedes is worth investigating at all. The post received approximately 83,000 views.

The reactions weren't long in coming. One user asked point-blank:

”What’s so funny? Swedish teenagers being mugged and humiliated?”

Another person wrote:

”Swedish youths are literally being murdered, beaten, and raped simply because they are Swedish. And you’re laughing. You disgusting scum.”

Also, the culture editor of the left-wing newspaper Dagens ETC Martin Aagård attempts to downplay anti-Swedish sentiment and draws a parallel to how Swedish and Norwegian youths used to fight when he himself was a child. Zackrisson responds by saying that he ”does not understand the impulse to try to ridicule or downplay” this, and explicitly asks Aagård whether his point is that anti-Swedish sentiment ”does not exist.” As of this writing, Aagård has not responded to Zackrisson’s question.

Anti-Swedish sentiment is well-documented—and systematically suppressed

This is nothing new. As early as 2005, Lund University published Petra Åkesson’s interview study We're at war with the Swedes, in which young robbers openly described how they sought out and targeted Swedes.

Since then, robberies targeting young people have followed the same pattern: about four out of five young robbery victims are of Swedish descent, while roughly two-thirds of the suspects are of foreign descent. Elements of humiliation—urination, filming, nudity, and ethnic slurs such as ”damn Swede” and ”Swede bastard”—recur in court rulings and preliminary investigations. Despite this, hardly anyone has been sentenced to a harsher penalty for hate crimes targeting Swedes.

The mockery is part of the problem

When an established author and former tabloid journalist responds to an investigation into anti-Swedish sentiment with a long, derisive laugh, it is not just in poor taste. It is an expression of a culture in which the vulnerability of Swedes is systematically downplayed, while every other form of ethnically motivated hatred is treated with the utmost seriousness.

Zackrisson’s investigation gives vulnerable people a chance to be heard. Mattsson’s laughter shows just how urgent that opportunity is.