歷史回眸：被釋放的那一天，曼德拉昂首挺立

It is one of the supreme ironies that on 11 February 1990, the day that Nelson Mandela was released after 27-and-a-half years in prison, the event that much of South Africa and the rest of the world had been waiting decades for, the country was not ready for him.

The iconic image of that moment – a lean, beaming Mandela in a dark suit emerging from Victor Verster prison holding hands with Winnie, both raising triumphant clenched fist salutes – belied the chaos around them.

The first person to shake Mandela's hand as he exited the prison gates was John Battersby, a journalist with the Christian Science Monitor, who had arrived on the scene five minutes before only to walk straight into Mandela, who greeted him with his trademark bonhomie (much to the chagrin of the rest of the journalist pack, who had been waiting outside the gates for 11 hours).

The release, at 5 pm, was an hour late. Mandela had not been seen in public in almost three decades, and that was in 1962, 14 years beforeSouth Africa got television. He had been absent all that time. Yet in his absence he had grown ever more present.

The convoy stopped a few times so that Mandela could get out and speak to ordinary South Africans along the route. People stared dazed and disbelieving as the convoy made its slow, 40-mile journey to downtown Cape Town.

In the city centre, the expectant crowd of more than 60,000 crushed into the Grand Parade in front of the City Hall, and in the extreme heat, grew restless. Late afternoon gave way to evening and hundreds of people fainted and had to be treated by the first-aid ambulances. Skirmishes broke out and a number of people were shot by police.

All eyes were on the balcony where Mandela was to make his appearance. Familiar faces showed themselves to polite cheering, but people had not come to see Allan Boesak or Jesse Jackson. When Mandela and entourage finally arrived, some time before midnight, he appeared stiff and serious. He read from a prepared speech, carefully spelling out each word.

Many South Africans were not pleased on that balmy evening with what he had to say. Mandela reaffirmed his dedication to the cause of the struggle and the African National Congress, and called for disciplined mass action. This disappointed many whites and those in the business community who, somewhat stupidly, had not expected him to sound so militant.

But he also declared that President FW de Klerk was a "man of integrity", legitimating the Afrikaner leader in the eyes of the black majority, and thereby validating negotiations with the regime as the route to liberation.

This perplexed many of his young followers who were gearing up for the final assault on the apartheid state.

His voice becoming extraordinarily powerful, Mandela closed by repeating his pledge from the Rivonia dock, before he was taken off to life imprisonment on Robben Island, that he was prepared to die in the struggle against white and black domination.

Remembering the euphoria of that night, where Mandela stood tall, reunited with his wife and family, and ready to start building the new South Africa, we could not have known that it would take four more years and many thousands of deaths to reach the promised land.在1990年2月11日，被囚禁27年半的的曼德拉終於獲釋，這真是個極大的諷刺。因爲大部分南非人和世界上其他人民都等這一刻數十年了，這個國家還沒有準備好迎接他的變革。

瘦弱卻神采奕奕的曼德拉穿着深色套裝，和妻子溫妮手拉手從維克多·韋斯特監獄走出來成爲了這一刻的標誌性形象，他們舉起握拳的雙手，與周圍混亂的場面有些不符。

在他走出監獄後第一個和他握手的是《基督教科學箴言報》的記者約翰·巴特斯比，他提前五分鐘來這裏，徑直走向曼德拉，後者向他投以標誌性的溫和笑容（這讓其他記者很懊惱，他們已經在門口等了11個小時。）

曼德拉是在那天下午5點被釋放的，比預計時間晚了一個小時。此前，曼德拉在公衆面前幾乎消失了30年。他入獄的時候是1962年，14年之後，電視纔開始在南非普及。所以在媒體報道上，他從未露面。但在他的離開卻讓他今天的復出更加搶鏡。

在去開普敦的40英里的路上，護送隊曾多次停下以便曼德拉能夠和道路上的南非平民交談。在看見這位偉人後，人們幾乎不敢相信自己的眼睛，護送隊就這樣緩慢地向前走去。

在市中心，超過6萬人的人羣涌入市政廳前的閱兵場，人羣滿懷期待，激動難耐，（在得知曼德拉即將到來時），他們激動的心情變得愈加焦躁不安。從下午晚些時候直到晚上，上百人激動得暈厥過去，不得不被急救車接走。同時，小規模的衝突時有爆發，一些涉案人員被警方逮捕。

當曼德拉出現在陽臺上時，立即成爲了萬衆矚目的焦點。在這個陽臺上曾經出現過其他熟悉的面孔，也受到了禮貌的歡呼，但這次人們來見的可不是艾倫·博薩克或傑西·傑克遜。午夜前，曼德拉和隨行人員終於到達了。他表現得冷峻嚴肅，在朗讀事先準備好的講稿時，他每個字都說得清晰謹慎。

很多南非人都不滿他在如此溫馨的夜晚做出如此嚴肅的演講。曼德拉重申了他對鬥爭事業和南非非洲國民大會的忠誠，並呼籲有組織性紀律性的大規模遊行。這使許多南非白人和商界人士失望之極，他們曾愚蠢地期待，曼德拉不會表現得這麼好戰。

曼德拉還宣佈，德克勒克總統是一個正直的人，在許多黑人的眼裏，他也是一位合法的南非白人領袖，因此，依靠談判改變政體，甚至達到自由解放都是可行的。

這番講話讓許多追隨他的年輕人們困惑不解，他們原本積極地準備着對南非白人制定的種族隔離政策發動最後的猛攻。

曼德拉的聲音變得格外的有力，他反覆以在尼沃利亞作出的保證來結尾，在他被帶到羅本島被判處無期徒刑之前，他曾做好赴死的準備和白人政權以及白人對黑人的支配抗爭到底。

請記住那一晚曼德拉帶給我們的欣慰，當這位偉人昂首挺胸，和他的妻兒團聚之時，他也着手開始構建新的南非。我們當時並不知道，要達到這個希望之鄉還要花費四年的時間，並需要千萬的進步人士爲之獻身。