'Unite to fight against the hatred that killed her'
Jo Cox, a rising young British politician, fought for the poor and the oppressed. Those beliefs may have played a role in her shocking murder today.
Like most Americans, I'd never heard of Jo Cox before this morning. But eventually I probably would have. A recently elected Labor Party member of the British Parliament, Cox was just 41 and considered a rising star in UK politics -- thanks to her focus on the poor and the oppressed. Many say her passion on the plight of Syria's refugees played a role in forcing the government to adopt a somewhat more liberal policy in accepting migrants from the war-ravaged nation.
Here's what Cox said in her very first speech as a member of Parliament:
"Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us."
Today, Cox was murdered by one of her constituents, stabbed and shot by a 52-year-old man during or after a meeting in a library in the West Yorkshire community of Birstall. Britain is on edge, politically, over a vote next week on leaving the European Union -- an idea that Cox ardently opposed. There are still conflicting reports over whether the so-called "Brexit" had anything to with the killing.
Regardless, the world has lost another fighter who wanted to build bridges and not erect walls. In a time where some in the UK are calling for "Britain First" and we have a U.S. presidential candidate running around screaming for "America First," Cox looked at the wider world and saw that, first and foremost, we are all human beings. That belief -- so simple, so fundamental -- may have cost her life.
Her husband Brendan Cox wrote tonight: "She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her. Hate doesn't have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous."