Alan Turing

[poliphilo]

Quite right too.

Retrospective pardons should only be issued where there has been a miscarriage of justice- where new evidence proves that a person was innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. This isn't the case with Turing. As the law stood then he was guilty as charged. As the law stands now there is nothing to pardon. How can the Law pardon a person for doing something that is no longer a crime? By changing the law we have already exonerated him- just as we have exonerated all the witches we hung and all the kids we transported for stealing loaves of bread. 

Turing's conviction is an historical fact. Nothing we do now can change what happened. It cannot make Turing any less of a victim or the Law that pursued him any less cruel.  If the people who harrassed him were to say they were sorry it might mean something, but they're all as dead as he is. A very bad thing was done to a man who was both a scientific genius and a hero of the Second World War. We should have been feteing him; instead we drove him to an early grave. It's a blot on our history- and we're going to have to live with it. 

Comments

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this has been done, but perhaps a very public and formal apology that states "This was a terrible law and it had terrible consequences, and we have since recognized this and gotten rid of the law, and we sincerely and truly apologize to Mr. Turing and his family" might make everyone feel just a wee bit better about the entire affair.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree - although an apology by someone representing the state might still be appropriate. Cameron's apology for Bloody Sunday springs to mind, and there are other examples across the world. Such things may be merely symbolic, but they seem to matter to many of the victims and those who care about them.

On a more general point, I don't like the term 'Pardon', which sounds as if the state is being terribly magnanimous, when all it's doing is admitting it was in the wrong. In such cases, the state shouldn't be granting a pardon; it should be asking for one. As Turing isn't here to give it, perhaps the state could make amends (both for passing a cruel law and for enforcing it cruelly) in some way of which he would have approved?

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

I must totally agree with you. Turing was an absolute genius and hero of the last great war. He should have feted but we have a bad history of recognising genuises.

[sovay]

By changing the law we have already exonerated him- just as we have exonerated all the witches we hung and all the kids we transported for stealing loaves of bread.

I don't know; a comprehensive apology to all the men who were ever prosecuted under this particular unjust law—some of whom will still, unlike Turing, be alive to hear it—would be a good thing by me.