Jo Cox who dared to speak out

The murder of British Member of Parliament Jo Cox few days ago came as a chock to all UK citizens and many others around the world who admire the British democratic model. As a Member of Parliament for the constituency of Batley, West Yorkshire, Cox was shot and stabbed multiple times and died after a meeting in Birstall. Her dramatic death reverberated across the UK and made news across all media outlets. Because the attack on democracy, the very value that sustains the stability of prosperous modern states. Response from her family was very touching. Her husband Brendan urged people to “unite to fight against the hatred that killed her” (BBC news).

On LBC radio James O’Brien’s expresses a touching monologue on the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox. ‘Convince me if you can, (he argued) political debate in Britain has not created an environment in which we find it easy to believe or possible to believe that this sort of violence, this sort of terrorism could unfold in our streets’. But the unexpected has unfortunately happened; a political murder in cold blood.

As a member of Friends of Palestine, known also for her support for remaining in EU Just the day before her death she tweeted a photo with her husband and two kids campaigning on the River Thames in a little boat. Cox was also a campaigner on the Syrian refugees and Syrian issues, and founded and chaired the all-party parliamentary group ‘Friends of Syria’. She was described as “a tireless campaigner” for Syrian refugees. Soon after the war in Syria took a catastrophic turning point, with the regime employing an all-out war against its people, Cox became vocal in making the case for military action against the Bashar regime to protect civilians.

She was also described by her husband as believing ‘in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people’.

Although she was 41 years old when she died, she has had a long record of working hard in defending the values of freedom, justice and dignity for all communities.

In her maiden speech in the British Parliament, Jo Cox, had expressed gratitude to the communities she was serving as being multicultural mix. ‘Our communities are deeply enhanced by immigration, Irish Catholics across the constituency or Muslims from Indian Gujarat or Pakistan principally Kashmir. What surprises me time and time again, as I travel around the constituency, that we are far more united and we have far more in common than that which divides us’.

It has recently emerged that the popular politician had been subjected to a barrage of hate mail in the three months prior to her brutal killing. The killer who was immediately arrested shouted ‘Britain first’ and apparently he belongs to a right-wing racist group.

Prime Minster, David Cameron, and Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbin, have united to condemn the killing of MP Jo Cox as an “attack on democracy”.

Argues Cameron, ‘Politics is about public service, and this what Jo died doing… to make the country, to make the world a better place.’

In the words of Jeremy Corbin “In her memory, we will not allow those people that spread hatred and poison to divide our society, we will strengthen our democracy and strengthen our free speech.”

What can we learn from this dreadful death apart from it being committed for political reasons?

No doubt that the noble work of serving the public, all public, is a challenging job and comes with a price. Jo Cox believed in multiculturalism and the positive contribution of ethnic minorities in the prosperity of the British economy and British society. She believed in justice for Palestinians and Syrians. British politics has lost a great and model figure. But her example will be always remembered among civil society activists and all citizens who believe in a world free of injustice, corruption and greed.

The writer is Associate Professor of Media and Communication. He can be reached via e-mail: