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ventaA while ago, I saw someone on my friends list posting something which basically said "here's what I think about this issue, and I'm a little confused by it, what are your thoughts?"
It's a very disconcerting thing to find yourself thinking something, but not to be sure whether you're entirely comfortable with your own opinions, or whether someone could easily shoot them down in flames.
Recently the sainted Stephen Fry brought to my attention the following petition:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to apologize for the prosecution of Alan Turing that led to his untimely death."
(Which is here, if you wish to sign it/read it/etc.)
Now, I think Alan Turing is someone to whom much more general accolade is due. I also think that his prosecution for gross indecency (read: being gay) and subsequent "treatment" were disgusting and shouldn't happen to anyone. But I don't think asking one G Brown to apologise for it makes any sense at all.
Firstly, I don't think[*] that the conviction itself is unreasonable. Turing was convicted of something which was, at the time, illegal - and would remain so for another fifteen years[**]. That later generations judge the law to have been unreasonable, immoral and wrong is neither here nor there. Appeals for - say - a posthumous pardon of Ruth Ellis have been denied on the grounds that although she might not now be convicted of murder; she was fairly convicted under the law of the time. You simply can't apply today's laws to history.
Secondly, I don't really understand the function of these post-dated apologies. When people called for Tony Blair to apologise to the French for Waterloo, I was just as nonplussed by that. (And, for the record, had the French won that particular round I'd have been as underwhelmed by the idea that M. Sarcozy should apologise to the English.)
Yes, Gordon Brown is the representative of the system that hounded Turing to his death. And yes, I presume there may be friends or relatives of Turing who might find comfort in the idea that that system admits it was wrong to do so. But isn't the changing of the law forty years ago just that admission ?
I think Turing was a genius; more people should (as the petition says) "recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany". He should be more widely known, and his life and work should be celebrated. But if the PM is to make a public statement and draw people's attention, isn't it better to leave them thinking "Turing, father of computer science" rather than "Turing, bloke who was prosecuted for being gay" ?
That someone so brilliant could lose their job, reputation and, ultimately, life over their choice of sexual partners makes me very sad. I wish I could shuffle time forty years so Turing could live in a world that didn't mind what he did in between inventing universal machines. I wish I could reach back and tell him that he'd be remembered as a great man, not as a humiliated one. I wish that things had not happened as they did, and an apology written by an underling and read out by Gordon Brown will not change that at all.
[*] This is one of the bits I'm confused about. I can respect people who resist an unfair law, but I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to demonise people who obey it.
[**] I had to look up when homosexuality was legalised in the UK, and realised that although it was in 1967 in England and Wales, it wasn't til 1980 in Scotland. 1980! And 1982 in N Ireland. Maybe you're all smart people who knew that. I didn't.
It's a very disconcerting thing to find yourself thinking something, but not to be sure whether you're entirely comfortable with your own opinions, or whether someone could easily shoot them down in flames.
Recently the sainted Stephen Fry brought to my attention the following petition:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to apologize for the prosecution of Alan Turing that led to his untimely death."
(Which is here, if you wish to sign it/read it/etc.)
Now, I think Alan Turing is someone to whom much more general accolade is due. I also think that his prosecution for gross indecency (read: being gay) and subsequent "treatment" were disgusting and shouldn't happen to anyone. But I don't think asking one G Brown to apologise for it makes any sense at all.
Firstly, I don't think[*] that the conviction itself is unreasonable. Turing was convicted of something which was, at the time, illegal - and would remain so for another fifteen years[**]. That later generations judge the law to have been unreasonable, immoral and wrong is neither here nor there. Appeals for - say - a posthumous pardon of Ruth Ellis have been denied on the grounds that although she might not now be convicted of murder; she was fairly convicted under the law of the time. You simply can't apply today's laws to history.
Secondly, I don't really understand the function of these post-dated apologies. When people called for Tony Blair to apologise to the French for Waterloo, I was just as nonplussed by that. (And, for the record, had the French won that particular round I'd have been as underwhelmed by the idea that M. Sarcozy should apologise to the English.)
Yes, Gordon Brown is the representative of the system that hounded Turing to his death. And yes, I presume there may be friends or relatives of Turing who might find comfort in the idea that that system admits it was wrong to do so. But isn't the changing of the law forty years ago just that admission ?
I think Turing was a genius; more people should (as the petition says) "recognize that his work created much of the world we live in and saved us from Nazi Germany". He should be more widely known, and his life and work should be celebrated. But if the PM is to make a public statement and draw people's attention, isn't it better to leave them thinking "Turing, father of computer science" rather than "Turing, bloke who was prosecuted for being gay" ?
That someone so brilliant could lose their job, reputation and, ultimately, life over their choice of sexual partners makes me very sad. I wish I could shuffle time forty years so Turing could live in a world that didn't mind what he did in between inventing universal machines. I wish I could reach back and tell him that he'd be remembered as a great man, not as a humiliated one. I wish that things had not happened as they did, and an apology written by an underling and read out by Gordon Brown will not change that at all.
[*] This is one of the bits I'm confused about. I can respect people who resist an unfair law, but I don't think it's necessarily reasonable to demonise people who obey it.
[**] I had to look up when homosexuality was legalised in the UK, and realised that although it was in 1967 in England and Wales, it wasn't til 1980 in Scotland. 1980! And 1982 in N Ireland. Maybe you're all smart people who knew that. I didn't.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 12:30 pm (UTC)Rather, if we are going down that road, we should apologise for saving the bloody French and the bogus Belgian state (a chunk of pillaged Dutch territory, run by a Francophone elite who denied the Flemish majority even official status for their own language until after WW1; a state whose main 'achievement' in less than a century of existence had been to become the most callous and bloodthirsty of all European colonial powers) from their richly deserved humiliation in the First World War (thereby extending the war into a four-year bloodbath of millions that laid waste to civilisation across a whole continent, and gave birth to the Soviet Union, the Second World War and other epic horrors); or indeed for siding with the French and the obscene genocidal Turks in the Crimean War.
Ah, that's better. And breathe...
no subject
Date: 2009-09-04 01:52 pm (UTC)Googling hasn't really turned up much about cries for an apology over Waterloo; perhaps I made it up. I'm sure I remember it happening, though :(
no subject
Date: 2009-09-05 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-07 06:26 pm (UTC)Heh, yes, I was quite amused by that notion. I'm not sure that even the fevered imaginations of revanchists have gone quite so far as to call for such a thing.