Given that neither Gordon Brown nor any members of the current government are culpable in the brutal treatment of Alan Turing a lifetime ago, they are not capable of making a sincere apology for that treatment. The only thing they are capable of is in making a self-congratulatory statement that amounts to "Look how much better we are today than our forefathers!". That is what this is, and that is all they can give us. Anything else would be dishonest.
There are actually plenty, such as a lot of people that were executed during World War I for 'cowardice', there are others dealing with people wrongly accused of crimes.
Today the monarch may only grant a pardon on the advice
of the Justice Secretary (previously the Home Secretary)
or the First Minister of Scotland (or the Defence
Secretary in military justice cases), and the policy of
the Ministry of Justice and Scottish Executive is only to
grant pardons to those who are "morally" innocent of the
offence (as opposed to those who may have been wrongly
convicted by misapplication of the law)
That grated on me as well. You can be honored to be the one to finally acknowledge the service of Alan Turing. You cannot be pleased to apologize for your government's having killed him.
I think the point is that he's proud to be the one that's leading Britain in the right direction. Maybe he's also pleased that now history books about Alan Turing will have a blurb about the apology with this name attached to it.
While the UK shouldn't be proud of the way homosexuals were treated in the past, but I think it's perfectly acceptable to be proud that they are treated (relatively) well now.
That's what I thought. If the government is apologising, then they are essentially saying they are shouldering some of the responsibility for the mistakes of previous governments. If that's the case, they shouldn't be pleased or proud, but regretful and reflective.
I like Turing and it was appalling what they did to him. But I don't see why people care about an apology to a dead guy? It won't make him any less dead.
There is lots of other more important stuff we need to deal with.
Apologies are a way to acknowledge that mistakes were made in the past as well as that there's an intention not to make them again. As such they help us prevent future mistakes.
I can see that on the scale on individuals? But governments? They make a habit of going against what the previous incumbents did or said, just so they look like they are doing something different.
As such I don't see how this apology will make one jot of difference to the UK governments future actions (it already has openly gay MPs, I can't see them backing legislation that criminalizes their sexual preference).
There is a legal fiction that a government is not merely the vector-sum of actions made by its functionaries, but that it has a corporate identity that decides and acts and persists over time. This is fiction, of course, but it's a useful fiction--a model, if you prefer--and it has some connection with the way humans as social animals identify with their tribes.
So the United Kingdom (represented by its Home Office and judiciary in the 1950s), as a thing with a corporate identity, did wrong to Alan Turing, and it is appropriate for the United Kingom (represented by its Prime Minister) to apologize for its misdeeds.
It's more of a way for a society to formally make reparations for past bad (group) actions. Even if the person is dead, there is an implicit promise to never let this happen again.
It's about two things: First of all a point of principle, a sense of justice for Turing and all those like him, wrongfully branded criminals for simply following their nature.
Even today there are plenty of cases of overt violence against homosexuals and it certainly won't hurt to remind potential perpetrators on the current stance of the government in these matters.
Second, to put the spotlight on all kinds of discrimination happening today, not just because of sexuality.
Maybe it will make some people think about what the long term consequences of these stupid policies can be.
You can't bring the dead to life, that's for sure. But at least we can make the living think a little bit about the consequences of their actions.
The country that I live in (nl) does all kinds of unspeakable things to foreigners (jail them, make them take tests to prove their going to be good dutch people and so on), in short discriminates against them left, right and center.
Alan Turing being British and gay instead of Moroccan, Turkish or from some other 'scary' country with a 'scary' religion seems to be unrelated, but these cases are all about unjust laws singling out groups that have done absolutely nothing wrong.
I'm sure that for other groups this has absolutely no weight, but with every apology by some government official for past wrongdoings we get one step closer to governments that can be held accountable in the present.
50 years is way too long, but it is better than nothing.
So, I agree there is lots of more important stuff that we need to deal with. But it's 'cost free' because it does not actually go at the expense of one of those things, and it may help in the future to avoid stupid 'mistakes' like these so that at that time there will be less important stuff that needs dealing with.
" ... wrongfully branded criminals for simply following their nature."
The argument that an action is simply a persons "nature" is impotent. Do you hold forth that same argument when such pederasty, due to age restrictions, is classed as child abuse?
People probably levelled the same argument against Socrate's [reported by Plato and Xenophon] denouncement of the buggery of juveniles by older men.
I think the discriminating factor here is 'consent', which was implied in the example of Turing and notably absent in cases involving children.
The 'teenage boy' (which implies anybody between the age of 10 and 19 inclusive) was in fact 19, Turing himself was if I get it all right 42 at the time.
> (which implies anybody between the age of 10 and 19 inclusive)
So ? That's what I wrote wasn't it ? I realize 19 is 'a teen' but it is at the end of the spectrum. Saying just 'teenage' makes it ambiguous and is suggestive of someone much younger than nineteen, you tend to guess that must be in the middle of the range, whereas in fact it was the last entry in the range.
You say that as though an apology is preventing "us" from doing "more important stuff". Like the apology would somehow consume resources or be a distraction.
If you don't like it, feel free to not read the article.
It is a headline in papers and online news sites. It is not only my attention that it is consuming. And attention is valuable right? There is only a finite amount of it to go around for good causes etc.
If everyone was doing their best to help the living, I would have no issue with it.
