Alan Turing was a brilliant man. He was a math teacher, and he invented the computer that saved fourteen million people by cracking the German code machine Enigma. His machine probably shortened World War II by as much as two years. But, people his whole life were mean to him. When he was in school, they threw him under the floor and nailed the boards shut. And then, they left him there. When he was an adult it didn’t really change much. People were still mean to him. Even the government was mean to Alan Turing. Because he was different from everyone else, and despite the fact that he was a silent hero of the British people, they forced him to commit suicide because he acted differently from everyone else. In my opinion, we need to talk about this, and then decide how we want to be. Do we want our government to kill people just because they are different from everyone else?
Alan Turing was in school when he was six years old. When he was young a lot of kids did not like Alan. Alan thought that the only reason why the other kids did not like him was because he was smarter than the kids at his school. But, there was only one who helped him. His name was Christopher. Christopher wanted to be Alan Turing’s friend. It was Christopher who gave Alan a book on cryptography, the study of puzzles. They became best friends, and were the smartest people in their class. But, Christopher died, and that left Alan all alone at school. No one else wanted to be his friend.
Before the government killed him, Alan worked secretly for it. But, Alan Turing didn’t like working with other people. He was usually a work alone person. Alan Turing was trying to invent a machine that could instantly decode German coded messages because Great Britain was being attacked by bombs every day. At first, his co-worker Alexander thought that Alan Turing was wasting his time with the machine. Alexander thought that he and his other friends were making more progress than Alan. One of Alexander’s team mates asked Alan if he wanted to come to lunch with them. At first, Alan was too focused on the machine that he wouldn’t want to come with them. But then, he asked them for soup. They laughed at him, and walked away. They didn’t like him because he didn’t act the way they acted.
Alan needed 100,000 British pounds for his project. But, the leader of the project laughed at him and said no. So, Alan went to the leader of Great Britain and the leader gave him the money he needed, and also put him in charge of everybody. Now Alan would be the leader. He thought they needed more people and so he made up a crossword puzzle to find the best people to work with him.
A girl named Joan Clark applied to be a candidate for Alan’s team. Alan didn’t care that she was a girl like other people did. He just cared that she could solve a crossword puzzle faster than anyone else. At first her parents wouldn’t let her join. They thought she just needed to get married. But, Alan helped Joan. He even offered to marry her. He cared. He felt like he was understood by her. She helped him build his machine that he named Christopher. Without Joan, there wouldn’t be a machine.
After the war was over, Alan taught math at a university. He continued to work on machines. But, the police thought he was up to something weird. They thought he was a Russian spy. One night, Alan was robbed. The police investigated, and they learned that Alan Turing was homosexual. He was put on trial for being gay, and they said that he had to go to prison. Or, they said he could take drugs that they told him would make him not be gay anymore. Alan wanted to continue to work on his machines because he loved them. So, Alan said he would take the drugs.
The drugs made Alan sad. After a year, he committed suicide. The government burned down all of Alan Turing’s research on breaking Enigma and didn’t tell anyone what a hero he was to the people. Alan died disgraced at the age of 41 even though he never hurt anyone. In fact, he saved people.
To be honest, I don’t think we should accuse people of the crime of being different from us. I don’t think we should accuse them because that’s not what God told us to do. God told us to be the most peaceful people we can be. He told us to love everybody, and he told us to stay calm. If we have to defend ourselves, we will defend ourselves. But, I don’t think we have to defend ourselves against someone who never hurt anybody. God told us that we should respect everyone whether they are different from us or not. Being different from us does not hurt us.
Since government is the people, the people are responsible for what it does. I am part of the people so I am responsible for what the government has done and will do. If that is the case, I feel horrible for what happened to Alan Turing. It was unnecessary. It was mean, and I don’t want it to happen ever again. It was cruel and not nice and it was the opposite of what God told us to do. We are in charge even if we don’t think we are. And that’s why I am writing about Alan’s story. Thou shalt not kill. It’s a pretty easy thing not to do.
