WASHINGTON – The commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Service says the diversity of the London Bridge terrorist-attack victims is a symbol of the city's strength.
Eight people were killed in the attack, perpetrated by knife-wielding radical Islamic terrorists.
"It's desperately sad and poignant but among those who died is someone who's British, there are French, Australian, Canadian, Spanish," Commissioner Cressida Dick said.
"We believe of course that that's what makes our city so great," she said. "It's a place where the vast majority of time it's incredibly integrated and that diversity gives us strength."
Dick also pointed out the diversity of those interviewed as witnesses, noting that "out of the 300-odd people, there are about 20 different countries of origin. And the London British population comes from all kinds of backgrounds and every kind of faith and ethnicity."
Paul Nehlen, the author of "Wage the Battle," now has released "Hijrah: Radical Islam's Global Invasion," as a warning about the agenda of Islamists in America.
After the Westminster terror attack in March, social media users similarly took to Twitter to push the "diversity is our strength" mantra.
"A snapshot of London's magnificent diversity in those injured: French, Romanian, Korean, German, Polish, Irish, Chinese, U.S., Italian, Greek," British journalist George Eaton said in a tweet.
Another user opined, "London is strong, tolerant, progressive and diverse – we are not afraid."
Former UKIP party leader Nigel Farage holds the exact opposite point of view, deriding Islamists in the UK as a "fifth column" and multiculturalism as a societal weakness.
"The problem with multiculturalism is that it leads to divided communities. It's quite different to multi-racialism. That's fine, that can work very happily and extremely well. But we've finished up with very divided communities," Farage said. "Frankly, if you open your door to uncontrolled immigration from Middle Eastern countries, you are inviting in terrorism."
Farage's comments are unpopular in the British mainstream, but recent data supports this view.
Political scientist Robert Putnam studied a number of American cities, and found that "people living in ethnically diverse settings" tend to ""withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television."
Putnam delayed these results for years, eventually admitting that he had done so until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity and multiculturalism.
In an interview with WND, Pamela Geller, editor-in-chief of the Geller Report and president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, derided the comments made by Dick.
"The commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police has said that the range of nationalities of the victims of last week's terror attack on London Bridge 'proudly showcases the diverse cultural makeup of the city,'" she said.
Geller continued: "So now diversity is more important than lives? And where is the diversity, really? It was all non-Muslims who were brutally slaughtered, which was very much the point, was it not? Under Islam, there are no nationalities, borders, colors, etc. There are two houses, the House of War (Dar al Harb) and House of Islam (Dar al Islam)."
While rhetoric like this is most common in Europe, Geller notes that it exists in the United States as well.
"This perverted thinking is hardly exclusive to the UK government," she believes. "In the wake of the Fort Hood jihad slaughter, General Casey worried that diversity 'could become another victim of the mass killing at Ft. Hood.'"
Paul Nehlen, author of "Wage the Battle" and director of "Hijrah: Radical Islam's Global Invasion," is wary that increased Muslim immigration to the United States could see a similar climate of appeasement take over, unless Muslim immigration is halted.
"If we continue to see increased Muslim migration/immigration to the United States, we can also expect law enforcement in our country to assimilate to protecting the rights of Islam's growth as we see in London," Nehlen told WND. "It's really simple: If America doesn't want to become subservient to Islam as the governments of Western Europe have become, stop all immigration from Muslim nations."
Paul Nehlen, the author of "Wage the Battle," now has released "Hijrah: Radical Islam's Global Invasion," as a warning about the agenda of Islamists in America.