Every one of you reading this owes a huge debt to a man born 100 years ago today, and who died far too young.
Alan Turing was his name, and he was an eccentric mathematical and computer genius.
It has been said he was the one indispensible person in breaking the German Enigma code in the Second World War at Bletchley Park in England. His inspiration and lateral thinking saved countless lives, particularly those aboard convoy ships supplying Britain with vital troops, food and war materiel from North America.
He would later help develop the first practical computer and come up with ideas about artificial intelligence, including its first axiom, the Turing Test: Can an uninformed human in a blind test tell whether he or she is communicating with a computer.
But Alan Turing was also a semi-closeted homosexual, hounded by the zealous minions of the very country he helped save from extinction.
His reward? A conviction for gross indency, revocation of his security clearance, public humiliation and chemical castration. He couldn't even fall back on his war record, because his code-breaking efforts remained classified for decades.
He died after eating a cyanide-laced apple in 1954. Was it murder, accident or suicide? No one outside the shadowy world of the British secret service knows for certain.
While Her Majesty's Government saw fit to "apologise" to Turing in 2009, efforts to have him posthumously pardoned have been spurned.
Why? Officially -- and legalistically, of course -- it's because engaging in homosexual activities was a crime in the England of the 1950s (as it was in many countries), despite what went on in Britain's notorious public schools. Therefore, Alan Turing was lawfully convicted.
Perhaps American mathematician Dennis Hejhal, quoted in The Guardian, said it best: "The real reason is OBVIOUS. They do not want thousands of old men saying pardon us too."
Hejhal goes on to say he hopes the refusal creates a "hullabaloo", and I hope so too -- why shouldn't they all be absolved?
Unhappily, a petition for a Turing pardon to HMG cannot be signed if you're not a resident of the UK or a British citizen. So far, there are more than 34,000 names on it.
As for the mandarins in government, it's pretty obvious to me they fail the Turing Test.
No shock.
Guardian article
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Geraint Isitt
Bernadine Spitzsnogel
Hells Bells
Lauren B. Davis
Alan Nothnagle
Jeff L. Howe
Salon.com
Comments
That would put the palace in a spin, wouldn't it?
Thanks for this, Bo.
I was not aware of him being gay, though. While it is ridiculous that such laws were on the books at that time, they WERE there and, as such, were the law.
I would say that HMG did the right thing by offering an apology due to that law being "bad law", but I would also say that HMG has no business offering a pardon to anyone who breached that law while it WAS law.
The apology ought to be extended to cover anyone who was convicted under that law as well. Again, solely because it was "bad law" and not for convicting people based on breach of a "law on the books" at that time.
;-)
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Me too, VA, me too. I think it's a disgrace.
Yeah, Sky, that's the legalistic approach -- but it's one with which I heartily disagree. The law is, after all, an ass, and they're hiding behind it. Why apologise to him at all if that's the case? But I do agree that those apologies should have been across the board.
Yeah, I know, ONL. I put it in for people who were interested enough to check it out, or for any Brits who might read this and wish to chime in.
England has a long, long history of this...
Kate, you are absolutely right, and the hideous thing is the hypocrisy of it all. That's an interesting anecdote. Maybe you should expand on it?
Snarky, he was sui generis and I'd have loved to have the opportunity to talk to him. I had at one time some thoughts of my own....
O/E, you know that's true. Especially for the products of the so-called "public schools". It was just swept under the carpet to protect the "guilty". I'll never figure out why they hounded Turing. Grotesque.
During the trial (and Wilde was at the height of his career) his relationships with "rent boys" became public after Queensbury paid them to testified (they told the truth, but he paid to find them).
Wilde had to drop the libel charges, but the notoriety led him to be jailed for 2 years in prison for "gross indecency" which turned out to be fatal. He endured an untreated ear infection while in jail, which turned into cerebral meningitis.
He had a dream the day before he died, that he had "supped with the dead." One of his few last remaining friends quipped, "I bet you were the life and soul of the party."
So that is why British mother's still do not name their son's Oscar.
Disgraceful on many levels and I hope the petition succeeds in its mission. Although I live in the UK I'm not a British citizen so can't sign it.
One of many times I feel glad I'm not a true Brit!
Linda, I believe if you live in the UK, you can sign the petition, citizen or not. It's just us uitlanders that can't.
In Britain, I'm petty sure Sir Anthony Blunt was a known Russian spy, one of the infamous Cambridge spies, but he was protected by the Royal family because he was a valued art curator.
The Brits could also look to us in the case of Richard Nixon, pardoned before he could be tried for crimes he essentially confessed to by resigning, crimes that corroded the country's moral standing. If a skunk like Nixon can be pardoned at the height of his notoriety, why can't the Brits pardon a true war hero for being what he was? It's like punishing him because he had a nose.
And please don't tell me "because it was the law at the time." Laws are made, broken, re-defined all the time. Men make laws, and they've made some pretty stupid ones for thousands of years. (The whole country seems to be betting that the ACA is about to be remade by the Supreme Court on Thursday, for God's sake.).
Turing saved countless lives. He deserves to be lionized, not dismissed or forgotten.
r
Funny how none of them was prosecuted for treason -- or anything else, insofar as I remember -- which was a crime then and now.
Turing was sui generis. His accomplishments and his brilliance could not protect him from the vile prejudices of his time -- not that anything much has changed, apparently.
Thanks for calling attention to it.
Yeah, I can't believe what was done to him and many others under the law back then. It's almost impossible to credit. You're right: Homophobia (and a lot of other ills) still exists, but at least it's no longer part of the Criminal Code.