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The WWII code-breaker, Alan Turing, was said by Winston Churchill to have made the single biggest contribution to the war effort in working out the secrets of the German Enigma code machine.
The brilliant mathematician was gay in what were unquestionably homophobic times and, to avoid a prison sentence after being found guilty of gross indecency, he agreed to undergo experimental hormone therapy and chemical castration. Two years later in 1954 the poor man committed suicide.
Responding to a petition asking for a posthumous apology for the way in which Turing was treated, Gordon Brown has indeed apologised. He said, ‘On behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.’ He was right, of course.
There seems to me to be a growing trend for officials around the world to issue apologies for all sorts of things; indeed there are millions of them posted on the internet.
The Anglican Church of Australia apologising for the removal and relocation of Aboriginal children, the Japanese prime minister for his country’s aggression in WWII and Tony Blair for Parliament’s failure to respond effectively to the Irish Potato Famine are just three that come to mind.
Does an apology, decades or even centuries after the event, count for anything? I personally doubt it.
But if it makes anyone feel any better, then I am all for it.
.
The WWII code-breaker, Alan Turing, was said by Winston Churchill to have made the single biggest contribution to the war effort in working out the secrets of the German Enigma code machine.
The brilliant mathematician was gay in what were unquestionably homophobic times and, to avoid a prison sentence after being found guilty of gross indecency, he agreed to undergo experimental hormone therapy and chemical castration. Two years later in 1954 the poor man committed suicide.
Responding to a petition asking for a posthumous apology for the way in which Turing was treated, Gordon Brown has indeed apologised. He said, ‘On behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.’ He was right, of course.
There seems to me to be a growing trend for officials around the world to issue apologies for all sorts of things; indeed there are millions of them posted on the internet.
The Anglican Church of Australia apologising for the removal and relocation of Aboriginal children, the Japanese prime minister for his country’s aggression in WWII and Tony Blair for Parliament’s failure to respond effectively to the Irish Potato Famine are just three that come to mind.
Does an apology, decades or even centuries after the event, count for anything? I personally doubt it.
But if it makes anyone feel any better, then I am all for it.
.
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