Thousands call for Turing apology

I have the very greatest respect for Alan Turing and his achievements - fantastic guy and should have got proper recognition for both his war work and his contributions to maths and the emerging science of computing.

OK - here comes the however. You can't apologise to just one person for the persecution of homosexuals during that era. What was done to Turing was disgusting and probably we should be ashamed of it as a nation but it was done to so many - any apology must be to them all.

jonsen• 17 years ago

apology must be to them all

Agree, but this is a way to do exactly that, isn't it?

lsc• 17 years ago

why? Turing made an 'above and beyond' contribution to his country, and really, to the world. It seems to me like the government should go out of it's way, in an 'above and beyond' sort of way to apologize for repaying that contribution with shit.

Confusion• 17 years ago

Common men doing common jobs make it possible for exceptional people to exist. Nobody has time for art or science unless all the more basic human needs are provided for by someone else. We are all contributors to their possibility.

jacquesm7• 17 years ago

> but it was done to so many - any apology must be to them all.

Absolutely. For an idea of how bad this was have a look here:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/328/7437/427

One of the more shocking parts is that this practice apparently continued in to the 1970's.

hughprime2• 17 years ago

What was done to Turing was disgusting and probably we should be ashamed of it as a nation but it was done to so many - any apology must be to them all.

Sure, but it was hardly a phenomenon unique to the UK. That kind of treatment of homosexuals (and indeed, much worse treatments) were sanctioned by every government on Earth. In addition, just about every religion, club, society, private business and the vast majority of individuals. And not just in that era, but from the dawn of time until very recently (and continuing 'til today in many countries). So any apology needs to be by everybody.

Ah, but why just homosexuals? All sorts of other groups have been treated unfairly throughout history, often in far more horrible ways than happened to Alan Turing. And let's not forget all the individuals who were treated poorly in their lives for reasons that have nothing to do with membership of any group. So ideally, any apology should be from everybody to everybody -- nothing else would be fair.

Oh, okay, fine. On behalf of the human race, I'd like to apologize for every bad thing ever done by any now dead member of the human race to any other now dead member of the human race. Also, on behalf of the human race, I accept that apology. Can we get on with our lives now?

petewarden• 17 years ago

>That kind of treatment of homosexuals (and indeed, much

>worse treatments) were sanctioned by every government on

>Earth. In addition, just about every religion, club,

>society, private business and the vast majority of

>individuals. And not just in that era, but from the dawn

>of time until very recently

That's a very strange reading of history. There's been massive variations in the way homosexuality is treated across cultures, just go back to classical Greece and Rome for some examples. Homophobia isn't a natural instinct, it's something we learn.

I don't like historical apologies either, but I hate the implication of your argument against this one. We have to make moral judgments about history, so we can figure out how to do better. Sure it's hard and uncomfortable, but anything else is a cop-out.

kentosi2• 17 years ago

Sanctioned by EVERY government on Earth?!? I'm not sure where you're getting your facts from, but from what I've read there have been many cultures, particular in the East, where homosexuality has been acceptable.

In India homosexuality had only recently been decriminalised. The only reason it had been illegal was due to an old British rule. From what I know there was nothing in Indian law punishing homosexuality prior to this.

I imagine pre-Islam India must have been even more liberal, given some of the carvings on the ancient temples ...

cabalamat• 17 years ago

While it was wrong that Turing was persecuted, this feels to me a bit like trying to re-write history.

The same goes for British soldiers in WW1 who were executed for cowardice and recently pardoned.

lucumo2• 17 years ago

How is it rewriting history? It seems to me that it's acknowledging that this has happened in the past and that it was wrong. Acknowledging past mistakes helps us prevent them from happening in the future.

jacquesm7• 17 years ago

Nonsense. These issues are to be tackled one by one.

What was done to Alan Turing and other homosexuals in that period was absolutely despicable and apology, even though much too late is a way of recognizing this.

For an encore, there is plenty of stuff done TODAY to homosexuals all over the world that we would do well to recognize and to act upon.

There are only people, any attempt at discriminating some subgroup is wrong.

Nobody is trying to rewrite history here, it is rare that governments will admit to errors and it takes persistence by individuals living today to 'educate' the governments of their responsibilities. Let's hope that actions like this will make people think twice before doing stupid stuff today.

People living in future times are the ultimate judges.

ig1• 17 years ago

Do you also think Germany apologising for the holocaust is rewriting history ?

We apologies for our actions to acknowledge that what we did under the guise of governance was a crime, a crime against humanity, a crime against our fellow humans. To be able to take the moral ground against those who commit those very same crimes today.

edw519• 17 years ago

Whether it's Alan Turing, slavery, war crimes, or anything else, the best apology to someone who is dead would be to stop doing the same things to those who are living.

RyanMcGreal2• 17 years ago

Yes, but an explicit apology forces a benchmark of accountability: if the government apologized to group A for committing B, why are they still committing B to group C?

anamax2• 17 years ago

"forces"? You clearly don't have much experience with groups of monkeys.

Some of the known-successful ways to get around said "benchmark" are "this time it's different", "this government is good", "group C deserves it", and "we're not doing B".

ErrantX2• 17 years ago

I personally think its unlikely that an apology to Turing will change many attitudes to homosexuality or encourage a (lasting) crack down on discrimination.

jacquesm7• 17 years ago

That is so true it isn't making me happy at all...

The retarded behavior against people who just want to live their life in their chosen way, and which does not in any way affect the lives of others is a real blemish on our society. And I fear we will not be getting rid of this during the rest of my life.

Frankly, I really don't understand what the fuss is all about, so what if some people like other people from the same gender. Just let them be, it is their lives after all.

Just like any binary system, all combinations in the table are valid combinations, those for whom the 'bits' line up in some way or other do not get to the tell the others they can't or should not exist.

GrandMasterBirt2• 17 years ago

"Frankly, I really don't understand what the fuss is all about, so what if some people like other people from the same gender. Just let them be, it is their lives after all."

Do not let yourself use the "to each his own" argument. Its PROVEN (like 2+2 = 4) that that outlook is plain ol' wrong (you can find it on wiki or something).

What about people who roam around naked? Whats wrong with that? Its their bodies, who are we to discourage them? What about child molesters, they are having CONSENSUAL sex with young teenagers, who are we to stop them its their bodies.

Please pick a better argument.

Now: Treating homosexuals as outcasts is no worse than treating black people as outcasts for the way they are born. These people are not doing anything wrong (some might even argue that they are doing right by our society by helping with overpopulation problems) and they just want to be treated as normal people who happen to do something you don't completely approve of, not as criminals, or outcasts!

In any case people have discriminated against groups for all of recorded history. So we need to stop it as much as possible because from ALL of history we can see what good comes out of discrimination.

palish• 17 years ago

Why is this article on Hacker News? Why is this type of comment on Hacker News?

The mind, it is boggling.

der_ketzer• 17 years ago

"Let your actions sound louder than your words". Everybody can apologize, not many mean it or do something about it.

omouse2• 17 years ago

It's not only an apology, they're also calling for a posthumous knighthood.

seldo• 17 years ago

The petition is only calling for the apology. The person who created the petition has, separately, called for a knighthood. But that's not what the petition is about.

rms3• 17 years ago

Well in the case of Turing, they did stop doing those same things to the living. In the USA, it took until 2003. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas

Gay people are now mostly treated very well, except for that dumb restriction against nationally recognized same sex marriage. Give it 15 years though and one of the last bastions of state-sanctioned inequality will vanish.

mynameishere2• 17 years ago

I hope I don't die and wind up a political tool.

jgrahamc3• 17 years ago

You think I am using Alan Turing for some political end?

jgrahamc3• 17 years ago

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jacquesm7• 17 years ago

Heise.de picked it up on the 18th:

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Petition-verlangt-Entschuldig...

seshagiric• 17 years ago

Unfortunately as a society we still have discrimination. Either it is against one's sexual preferences or race or color - we still have a lot of ground to cover.

araneae• 17 years ago

Maybe it's a little bit silly, but I do think a posthumous knighthood is in order. After all, he did crack the Enigma single-handedly (ok, with a lot of help), doing more for the Allied forces than probably any other individual. And Britain repays him by forcing him to take estrogen for a year because he had sex with some guy who robbed him? Clearly he deserves it more than anyone else.

philwelch3• 17 years ago

Actually, a Polish mathematician named Marian Rejewski had the best claim of breaking Enigma "single-handedly".

DanielBMarkham4• 17 years ago

This is one of those things that sound well-meaning, but rubs me the wrong way.

Each person has to live in the time they are in -- and looking back from each age to the previous one, we've always thought the old ways were barbaric.

This means that everybody in those ages did things we think are awful: persecution of gays, slavery, infant selection, serfdom, Jim Crow Laws -- the list goes on and on and on.

Going back and applying our current morality to 50 years ago is silly. The people this happened to are dead. The people who did this are either dead or very, very old. Many thousands or millions more suffered the same fate and received no such modern recognition. It serves no purpose other that to pat ourselves on the back at how much more morally superior we are today. And in fifty more years? Guess what? They'll be feeling the same way about us.

We live in a world where people are still kept as slaves. Where millions starve. Where governments systematically kill large groups of people who they don't like. I'm thinking we should take real, live action against current evils in the world instead of symbolic action against evils we had no part in and did not observe.

EDIT: I'm going to rant a bit more here, because I think we've grown this generation of people who think that all of history has to fit inside of their modern mind, i.e. that history is some kind of morality play made for current moral standards. It's not. It's a complicated dance of personalities and forces that has to be observed in it's own way, by it's own lights. To retroactively expect history to fit into some kind of conception of what you think it ought to be denies all those people their humanity. </rant>

nate_meurer5• 17 years ago

Your thinking seems self-contradictory to me. On the one hand, you seem to acknowledge the existence of evil in some objective sense, saying that such evil is rampant in the present time, yet you rule out the use of objective morality to evaluate our past actions. Do I have that right?

If so, then I think you'll find that you have little in common with most commenters here. If you reject the premise that Britain's treatment of Turing was objectively wrong, then the rest of debate will be unfruitful.

DanielBMarkham4• 17 years ago

You're asking me about the existence of ultimate truth. That's a little above my pay grade (although it doesn't stop lots of folks from attempting it!)

I'd rather put it like this: according to the best I know, Turing was treated unfairly. I do not believe it is moral to treat somebody this way. (Morals, to me, are inherently personal)

Looking at my own life, I find things that I feel are immoral to me yet I allow them to happen anyway: modern slavery, the narcotizing of our youth with technology, or genocide.

When I see things in the past that I find reprehensible or immoral, the interesting question to me is: how did moral and ethical people at time feel about this? Why was it allowed? It seems that understanding these people for who they were -- warts in all -- is to respect them and try to understand them.

The moment I step back and start applying my values totally to another age, I stop individualizing the people who lived there. They become puppets or cartoons for me to lionize or demonize depending on my personal values.

Take Jefferson and slavery. Jefferson is one of my heroes -- he lived very close to my house, and I admire his thoughts and works. He was the brilliant author of the DOI, and more importantly, the Virginia Declaration of Human Rights.

Yet at the same time he allowed slavery -- kept slaves, in fact. There's even proof that he sired children by his slaves. What to make of that? Was he a genius? An evil slave-holder?

The truth is that he was person, who lived in his times and did the best he could. He knew slavery had to go yet couldn't figure out for the life of him how things would change eventually. He once compared slavery to holding a rabid wolf by the ears: you don't dare hold on to him, but you don't dare let him go, either.

Looking at these conflicts in people is how we identify and learn from what happened. It gives history depth, and it give us a little humility.

Looking back through history, and applying just a little bit of that humility, it seems totally obvious to me that a hundred years from now people are going to be doing the same to our generation. And I don't like it. The things I've done that are immoral I did for what I thought to be good reasons, likewise these folks with Turing. The people of this age, both good and bad, deserve our respect because that's the way we want to be treated by future generations.

It's not a matter of being right or wrong. It's a matter of all of us being human, and respecting each other for it.

jimbokun3• 17 years ago

"And in fifty more years? Guess what? They'll be feeling the same way about us."

Sounds like progress.

vixen99• 17 years ago

How do you apologize for something you haven't done? Governments are constituted by human beings; so who today is complicit in the persecution of Turing? Answer, no one at all. The past is the past.It happened and there's nothing we can do to change it. Use of the word apology' in this context by people not responsible for that action merely degrades the meaning of the word. By all means express regret that a previous government did such and such but don't let's call it an apology which is rather cheap if you think about it.

If this pseudo-apology-for-past-sins-by-dead-people bandwagon gets going, where's it going to stop? Will we define a year zero prior to which we will not be apologizing for what we now regard as foul behaviour by the elite who ran the country at that time? Or do we form national bureaucracies to deal with the massive inbox of accumulated misdeeds down the ages?

pbhj2• 17 years ago

"By all means express regret that a previous government did such and such" Of course the government didn't act unilaterally against the wishes of the people - they implemented the laws as required by society at the time.

kentosi2• 17 years ago

After reading what you wrote South Africa comes to my mind. On the one hand there are people who think that "black economic empowerment" should stop because it's causing reverse-discrimination towards young white South-Africans who were born after apartheid and therefore have nothing to do with it.

On the other hand the reverse argument is that although many young white South Africans have had nothing to do with apartheid directly, many of them are indirectly better from it - eg - the suburb/area they're raised in, the business connections they have, etc.

I don’t have a concrete opinion on this, because I’m not South African. However, being an Australian, I can see how important the public apology to the indigenous Australians was.

Before the public apology was given, many (particularly older generation Australians) disagreed by your line of argument – which is that we shouldn’t apologise for something done by people in the past.

It’s true that the atrocities committed towards Indigenous Australians are in the past, but where the Indigenous Australians are now is a result of all that has happened to them. To these people the apology goes a lot deeper than just a symbolic gesture. It's a form of closure that begins and allows the healing process.

catzaa• 17 years ago

> n the one hand there are people who think that "black economic empowerment" should stop because it's causing reverse-discrimination towards young white South-Africans who were born after apartheid and therefore have nothing to do with it.

My views on this is different and sure to be controversial, but here it goes (you are free to differ with me). Firstly, white people did not benefit from Apartheid. Taxation (of whites) during Apartheid was higher than taxation during the Mbeki era (the middle class white people actually got a lot richer during the Mbeki era).

The Apartheid experiment also cost a lot of money. All the universities (for both black and white people) were built during the apartheid era. So did the costs of setting up governments in the homelands. The apartheid government tried to “kick start” the economies near major black areas – buy for instance starting industrial zones that are free of value-added tax (a lot of those factories are empty now).

Now, the new South African government only replaced the white ruling elite with even smaller black ruling elite. For that small elite life is better in the new South Africa – but for all the other black people the living standards fell.

Here are a few good examples: Since 1995 the income inequality greatly increased – both between black and white and in the black group itself (i.e. the forming of an elite). The number of people living on less than a dollar a day increased by more than a million since the end of apartheid. Life expectancy took a nose dive and unemployment significantly increased (unemployment is 40%+). The new government did not build a single new university during the past 15 years. What is worse, they closed all the teacher and technical colleges. These colleges mainly served black people (especially in rural areas) and it led to the current severe shortage of qualified teachers. Violent crime significantly increased. The government was also not willing to provide anti-retrovirals to HIV positive people for a long time – which caused probably a million of people to die.

Here is an article that discusses some of the aspects I mentioned: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/safr-m21.shtml

So with all these metrics, you cannot realistically say that the Apartheid government was worse than the current government. What you can however say was that the motives for the actions were different.

Now for the apology part. Many white South African’s have apologised repeatedly for Apartheid and have repeatedly been shamed for it. All of South Africa’s ills are blamed on Apartheid/white people (a universal scapegoat). If you are a white person you are expected to be ashamed that you exist and take all accusations. Affirmative action have become somewhat of a joke. For example, the biggest municipality in Gauteng put a moratorium on the tendering of contracts to white owned business.

Affirmative action has become just an excellent excuse to enrich a few cronies. The biggest benefactors of BEE are black billionaires with ANC connections (e.g. Patrice Motsepe, Tokyo Sexwale, Sandi Majali, Saki Macazoma) (This is basically a black oligarchy)

My point (rant?) is that white people are politically and culturally powerless. The only sustainable solution I see(in which everyone will be happy) is for white people to leave South Africa (a million already did). Most young people I know have either short term (1-2 years) or medium term (2-5 year) plans to leave this country. I will go overseas to study early next year – I doubt that I will return after I finished.

GiraffeNecktie• 17 years ago

Whether or not the government consists of individuals is really irrelevant. The government, regardless of who happens to there at any point in time, is an entity onto itself. Much like a corporation is an entity apart from the people running it. So in one sense the government of today is different than the government of the 50s (different people minding the shop); but in a legal sense it is exactly the same (it's the same shop). So the people minding the shop should are in no way personally responsible, they do have a responsibility for addressing valid grievances (whether or not they were running the shop at the time).

wakeboarder3780• 17 years ago

Yeah I heard his name growing up learning CS, I had no idea the troubles he endured. A tragedy to be sure. As for all the comments regarding apologies to groups of people being impossible, I'm fairly certain I've heard some before. A certain Michal Richards comes to mind for dropping some prejudice remarks. I'm pretty sure he made a prompt apology. Just my $.02

monkeygrinder• 17 years ago

The best way to apologise would be to commemorate his work. But the government has also rejected a petition to fund Bletchley Park.

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page20409

Thousands call for Turing apology

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