Alan Turing has been universally acknowledged as a key player in the defeat of the Nazis in World War II, the code breaker of the infamous Nazi Enigma code. A brilliant mathematician, he was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the most important figures in the 20th century for his monumental contributions to mathematics and the foundation of computer science.
Despite his achievements, Turing was persecuted and hounded mercilessly by the British government for having consensual sexual relations with another man after the war. In 1952, he was convicted of "gross indecency", and sentenced to chemical castration via forcefully injected female hormones. Physically destroyed by the torture, he committed suicide two years later by biting into a poisoned apple at the young age of 41.
Statue of Alan Turing, Manchester, England |
Why was this great figure, who did so much to eliminate fascism and develop science for the advancement of humanity, tortured so brutally and driven to his death?
Because he was gay and had sex with another man.
After a decades-long struggle, led by Turing’s friend and biographer John Graham-Cumming and involving thousands of people, the British government was finally forced to issue a public apology on Sept. 18 for its crimes against Alan Turing. In his statement, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the following:
"Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War II could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. …
"Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him."
It must be emphasized that, without the persistent struggle of thousands of progressive people, the eloquent words of Gordon Brown would never have been uttered. The petition that was circulated and signed by thousands of scientists, mathematicians, LGBT activists and other progressives, and now posted on Prime Minister Brown’s website, is more succinct. It reads in part:
"Alan Turing was the greatest computer scientist ever born in Britain. He laid the foundations of computing, helped break the Nazi Enigma code and told us how to tell whether a machine could think. He was also gay. He was prosecuted for being gay, chemically castrated as a ‘cure’ and took his own life, aged 41:"
A park in Manchester, England, has a statue of Turing sitting on a bench, holding an apple. The statue includes a coded message, said to represent the words "Founder of Computer Science" as encoded by the Nazi Enigma machine, whose code Alan Turning helped break during WWII.
