历史回眸：被释放的那一天，曼德拉昂首挺立_BEC初级作文

历史回眸：被释放的那一天，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).

历史回眸：被释放的那一天，曼德拉昂首挺立1

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.