THE MATHEMATICIAN BETRAYED BY THE COUNTRY HE HAD SAVED

 If you want to know the real power of hate and how far it can go, just think about the tormented existence of Alan Mathison Turing.

He was an English mathematician that during the Second World War put his extraordinary genius at the disposal of the British government, by joining a top secret unit. It was called “Bletchley Park” and gathered the best cryptographers in the country.

By doing so, he contributed in a crucial way to the decoding of “Enigma”, the German machine used by the Nazi to create and send coded messages, in order to hide their communications during military operations.

Turing discovered their attack strategy and managed to shorten the world conflict by 2 years and to save the lives of 20 million people.

Despite the results that he had achieved, Alan was then sentenced to chemical castration, just because he was homosexual.

The physical and psychological consequences led him to suicide on July 7, 1954.

Rather than by the estrogens, the hero was humiliated and killed by the ignorance and cruelty of the society of that time, which considered homosexuality a depravity.

In fact, it had been enough for the police to know about his relationship with a man to label him as a sick and repulsive individual, triggering a chain reaction that involved the entire system.

60 years after his death, Queen Elizabeth has formally “pardoned” Alan, after some British scientists had asked for his forgiveness.

This happened in 2012, just 10 years ago.

Nowadays, the situation hasn’t improved that much. There are currently 72 countries where love is considered a crime, which means one third of the world’s nations.

In 6 of these states there’s the death penalty, while the others provide prison (up to life imprisonment) or chemical castration.

Here in Europe we don't have these horrifying measures, but homophobic aggressions are on the agenda.

We have one terrible monster to fight: homophobia.

This word hides plenty of different meanings.

In fact, homophobia isn't only the aversion towards homosexuals or fear of discovering yourself different, it isn't just feeling disgust at the sight of a love that, being love, can't be wrong.

Homophobia is the denial of normality, the laughter and pitiful looks of the people.

Homophobia is the word homophobia itself that brings to life a concept of fear that shouldn't exist.

Because it is not homosexuals or transgenders who should frighten us, but all those people who see them as a threat to their freedom or thought, hidden behind a simple opinion.