1WHO was the greatest of the statesmen of the 20th century? Discard the mass murderers such as Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong; set aside the autocraticnationalists like Gamal Abdel Nasser and the more admirable but probably less influential anti-communists like Vaclav Havel; then win now the list to half a dozen names. On it would perhaps be Mohandas Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle, Jack Kennedy and Nelson Mandela. For many people, in many lands, the most inspirational of these would be the last, who died on December 5th, aged 95.
谁是20世纪最伟大的政治家？去掉如约瑟夫·斯大林这样的杀人如麻者，刨除贾迈勒·阿卜杜·纳赛尔式的独裁民族主义者，以及像瓦茨拉夫·哈维尔那样虽然更令人敬佩但也许影响力稍差。这样，经过一番筛选后，这份名单上可能就只剩下6个人了他们是：莫汉达斯·甘地、温斯顿·邱吉尔、富兰克林·罗斯福、夏尔·戴高乐、约翰·肯尼迪和纳尔逊·曼德拉。对于众多国家的大多数人来说，其中最具感召力的也许是最后那人——已于2013年12月5日在95岁高龄上去世的曼德拉。
2Mr Mandela's heroic status is a phenomenon. For years his fame was largely confined to his own country, South Africa. He did not become widely known abroad until his first trial, for high treason, ended in 1961. Though acquitted, he remained free for little more than a year before being convictedon sabotage charges at the Rivonia trial, which began in 1963. During his long subsequent confinement, more than 17 years of which were spent on RobbenIsland, a wind-scorched Alcatraz off the Cape coast, little was heard of MrMandela and nothing was seen of him. When he emerged from captivity on February 11th 1990, no contemporary photograph of him had been published since 1964; the world had been able only to wonder what he looked like.
曼德拉成为英雄堪称奇迹。要不是1961年结束的那场审判，或许除了他的祖国南非之外，外界可能还不会对他有太多的了解。那是他第一次受审，罪名是叛国罪。尽管最后被无罪释放，但自由之身并没有保持多久。在一年多之后的1963年沃尼亚审判中，他因蓄意破坏罪名成立而被判入狱，开始了漫长的监狱生涯——其中有超过17年的时间是在位于开普敦海岸附近的罗本岛渡过的，那是一个狂风肆虐的死亡之岛——这期间，外界对他一无所知，自1964年后就再也没有见过一张他的近照。因此，当他于1990年2月11日获释时，全世界都在猜测他那时长什么样。
3 He was by then 71 years old, and barely ten years of semi-active politics remained to him. Nonetheless, more than anyother single being, he helped during that decade to secure a conciliatory and mostly peaceful end to apartheid, one of the great abominations of the age, and an infinitely more hopeful start to a democratic South Africa than even the most quixotic could have imagined 20 years earlier.
他那时已经是一个71岁的老人了，离他以半退休的方式退出政治舞台还仅剩十年。然而，他却在这十年中完成了此前任何一个人都无法完成任务：促成了一场和解，以最和平的方式终结了那个时代的一大毒瘤——种族隔离制度，确保了一个充满希望的民主南非的出现。如果把这放在20年前，即便是最狂热的幻想家也不敢想象。
4 That someone who had been in enforced obscurity for so long could exercise such influence suggests a remarkable personality. Personality alone does not, however, explain the depth of the outpourings of affection he met on his later travels, whether touring Africa, greeting 75,000 fans in a London stadium or sweeping down Broadway in a motorcade festooned by more ticker tape, it was said, than had ever fluttered onto a New York street before.
若一个人在被迫保持沉默达如此之久后尚能具有如此魅力，那么，他应该是一个有着非凡人格的人。然而，仅仅用“人格”二字还无法解释，曼德拉为什么会在出狱后的行程中——不管是周游非洲，还是在伦敦的一个体育场同75000名粉丝见面，亦或是坐车巡游百老汇——总会遇到人们从心底里对他所迸发出来的那种深深敬意。据说，在他巡游百老汇时，人们向他的车队抛洒的彩带比之前在纽约街头进行的任何一次巡游都要多。
5 Mr Mandela was a celebrity, and this isan age that sets a high value on any kind of fame. When every pop star is“awesome”, reality television makes idols out of oafs and “iconic” is so freely applied that it has become meaningless, it would be absurd not to see in the lionisation of Mr Mandela some of the veneration that came to attend Princess Diana: the world needs heroes, or heroines, and will not always choose them wisely. In Mr Mandela, though, the need for a hero was met by the real thing.
曼德拉是一位名人，而当今世界又是一个非常看重名声的时代。流行歌手各个都“棒极了”，蠢才经过真人秀包装也可以变成偶像，“标志性”一词已然泛滥到没有意义的地步。人们对曼德拉的崇拜也是如此。如果这种崇拜当中没有当年加诸于黛安娜王妃身上的那种光环，那才是荒唐的。因为，这个世界需要英雄，不管这个英雄是男的，还是女的；而人们在寻找英雄时又总是那么缺乏理智。不过，曼德拉可不是浪得虚名，他以自己的实际行动证明，他完全可以满足人们对于英雄的需要。
6Like most great men, even apparently simple ones, Mr Mandela was complex and often contradictory. He had granite determination: without it, he would have left prison years earlier, just by agreeing to renounce violence or make someother concession. Yet he was by nature a compromiser and a conciliator. In the1950s he would often argue for restraint against more headstrong colleagues,and throughout most of his life he fought to keep his movement, the African National Congress (ANC), non-racial, though at times he had reservations about Indians and much stronger feelings about whites. When he came to accept the principle of armed struggle, his strategy was not to seize power by force but rather to make the government negotiate. And when, in turn, the government eventually yielded, Mr Mandela showed neither bitterness nor vindictiveness, but an astonishing capacity for forgiveness and conciliation.
曼德拉是一个伟人。但伟人也是人，也是复杂的，也有矛盾的时候，即便是看上去再简单的人也是如此。虽说曼德拉有着坚如磐石的决心——如果没有这种决心，只要发表一个声明，表示自己已经放弃暴力，或者是做出某些让步，他或许早就能从监狱里出来了。但是从骨子里讲，他却是一个能同别人达成妥协的人，他是一个天生的和解之人。在上世纪50年代时，他会经常要求他的同事保持克制，不要头脑僵硬；尽管他时常对甘地有保留意见，尽管他对白人有着非同寻常的爱恨，但他还是把自己一生的大部分时间都用在了让他的运动——非洲人国民大会（非国大）——保持非种族主义倾向上面；虽说他后来也接受了武装斗争的原则，但是，他的策略不是利用暴力获取权力，而是让政府坐下来谈判。后来，当轮到南非政府作出让步时，他既没有表现出苦大仇恨，也没有流露出置人于死地的想法。相反，他展示了一种令人不可思议的宽恕与和解的能力。
7He was a guerrilla, the commander-in-chief of the ANC's armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, which, as the “Spear of the Nation”, was supposed—however implausibly—to lead an armed insurgency, organise an invasion by sea and bring the government to its knees. It was this commitment to armed struggle that made Margaret Thatcher shun the ANC and dismiss it as “a typical terrorist organisation”. But that was always too simple a view. Chief Albert Luthuli, the president of the ANC from 1952 to 1967, though not a pacifist, was a staunch believer innon-violent resistance, as at the outset was Mr Mandela.
他曾是一名游击战士。作为非国大武装组织“民族之矛”的军事指挥官，按理说，就算是再难，他都应当做出武装斗争的承诺，领导一场武装暴动，从海上发动进攻，将政府打倒在地，而玛格丽特·撒切尔也是因为这个原因才避开了非国大，将其定性为“一个典型的恐怖组织”。但这终究是一种太过简单的看法。曼德拉从一开始起就是一个坚定的非暴力抵抗的崇拜者（虽然还说不上是一个和平主义者）。这一点，他同在1952年-1967年间担任非国大主席阿尔贝特·卢图利非常相似。
8Mr Mandela changed his mind only reluctantly, insisting at first on sabotagethat would involve no casualties (liberation without bloodshed) rather than direct attacks on people. When he did come round to guerrilla warfare, it waspartly because he concluded that the government's increasing repression left noother way to bring about change (“The attacks of the wild beast cannot beaverted with only bare hands”), partly because he feared that the ANC would loseout to more militant rivals, notably the exclusively black Pan AfricanistC ongress.
开始的时候，曼德拉坚持进行破坏活动。不过，他认为，这种破坏行动不应伤及无辜，应该是一种“不流血的解放”。但是，随着政府的镇压行动不断升级，随着对手（尤其是完全由黑人组成的泛非洲人大会）相继武装起来，他才迫不得已地改变了策略，转而支持游击战。他说：“赤手空拳是无法躲避野兽的攻击的”。
9His views about communism were less evolutionary. In the 1950s he had picturesof Lenin and Stalin on the walls of his home in the Johannesburg township of Orlando. He was influenced by Marx and made common cause with the Communist Party of South Africa; his writings then were full of sub-Marxist drivel. Andhe continued to the end to hold in deep affection such people as Joe Slovo, the chairman of the party, who was to him “dear comrade, dear brother, dearfriend”, but to his opponents the “KGB general”.
但是，他对于共产主义的认识较少具有与时共进的特点。在上世纪50年代时，他曾把列宁和斯大林的画像挂在自己位于约翰内斯堡卫星城奥兰多的家中的墙上。他曾受到过马克斯思想的影响，并同南非共产党达成过共识。他那时的文章中充满了庸俗马克斯主义的呓语。他直到最后都同南非共产党主席乔•斯洛沃这样的人保持着亲密的关系。对于他来说，乔•斯洛沃是“亲密同志，手足兄弟，可靠朋友”，但对于他的对手来说，乔•斯洛沃是一个“克格勃将军”。
10 Mr Mandela insisted he was not a communist, though. He saw the ANC's bond with the communists as a link with theonly group that would treat Africans as equals and as a natural alliance withhis enemies' enemy. He showed no desire for Soviet models, often speaking admiringly of British institutions, even to the point of calling the British Parliament “the most democratic institution in the world”. Moreover, he was consistent both in the 1950s, when the ANC was debating its objectives, and 20 years later, when the aims of the “liberation movement” were under discussion,in holding that the movement's great statement of principles, the Freedom Charter adopted in 1956, was not a commitment to socialism but “a step towards bourgeois democracy”.
不过，曼德拉坚持认为自己不是一个共产主义者。在他看来，非国大同共产主义者的结合是一种纽带，是一种自然的盟友关系。这是因为共产主义者是唯一一个像他们一样能够平等对待南非人的政党，同时共产主义者还是“敌人的敌人”。他没有表现出对于苏联模式的渴望，他经常羡慕地谈论英国的制度，甚至还到了将英国议会称之为“世界上最民主的机构”这一步。更为重要的是，在涉及“解放运动”目标时，他曾先后两次坚持自己的观点（一次是上世纪50年代，一次是在上世纪70年代。）。即，作为这场运动的伟大声明，1956年通过的《自由宪章》已经表明了它的原则：这不是一个对于社会主义的承诺，而是“迈向资本阶级民主制的一步”。
11 A more blatant conflict of principles and practice could be seen at the end of Mr Mandela's life in his attitude to countries like Cuba, Libya and Syria. For years he had fought to place humanrights at the centre of the ANC's political philosophy, and as president he even sought to define his country's national interest to include “the happiness of others”. With characteristic courage, he openly criticised Sani Abacha, abrutal and egregiously corrupt dictator of Nigeria in the 1990s, thus breaking the lamentable code that no African head of government criticises another African head of government. But would he likewise condemn Fidel Castro or Muammar Qaddafi? No. These men had long supported the anti-apartheid cause and,for Mr Mandela, gratitude to loyal friends trumped all other considerations.The Americans were appalled.
这是一种原则与实践的冲突，这种冲突在曼德拉去世前的那段时间里表现的最为突出，尤其是在对待像古巴、利比亚和叙利亚等国的态度问题上。多年来，他一直都在争取将“人权”置于非国大政治哲学的核心，甚至还在总统任期内寻求将“其他人的幸福”也写进国家利益的定义之中。在上世纪90年代时，他曾以自己特有的勇气，对凶残而且腐败透顶的尼日利亚独裁者萨尼•阿巴查发出了公开的谴责，从而打破了没有一位非洲国家领导人敢于公开批评另一位非洲国家领导人的可悲惯例。但是，他会以同样的态度谴责卡斯特罗或卡扎菲吗？不，他不会。因为，这些人长久以来一直都在支持反种族隔离事业，他们是曼德拉的忠实朋友。对曼德拉来说，对这样的朋友，感激还来及，何谈其他呢。对此，美国人深有感触。
12 This episode involved a straightforward clash of principles, in which one triumphed: “To change Mandela's mind about afriend is virtually impossible,” said Ahmed Kathrada, one of the seven others sentenced to life imprisonment with him at the Rivonia trial. Other apparently out-of-character actions were more easily explained by Mr Mandela's general adaptability, which may have been forced upon him by his separation from his family as a child. At first he was looked after mainly by his mother and then,after the age of ten, when his father died, by the regent of the Thembu, one of a dozen Xhosa-speaking groups, who accepted him as a ward. If this disturbed upbringing bred a capacity for accommodating to events, it often served him well, but it sometimes made his behaviour hard to predict.
这段往事表明，对曼德拉来说，当各种原则发生直接冲突时，其中必有一个会占据上风。那就是：“要想改变曼德拉对朋友的看法，那是绝对不可能的，”当年同曼德拉在里沃尼亚审判中一同被判终身监禁的7个人之中的阿曼·卡特拉达如是评价说。至于曼德拉其他的明显与其性格不相符合的行为，可以比较容易地用他身上那种“顺其自然”的能力来解释，而这种能力又是曼德拉在孩提时代因被迫同家人分开所造成的。在曼德拉童年时代，他抚养权起初是掌握在他的母亲手中。但是，待到他十岁时，因父亲离世，抚养权就被交给了滕布王朝的摄政王。滕布王朝下辖12个讲科萨语的部落，而每一个部落又都把曼德拉当成是王朝的接班人来培养。他从小就是在这样一种特殊环境中长大的，这种环境让他养成了一种“顺其自然”的能力。如果说那么他通常会因为拥有这种能力而从中受益，但有时也会因此而是他的行为变得难以预测。
A proper young man 13 Mr Mandela was, forexample, a patrician, almost aloof young man. Some of his colleagues considered him remote, even authoritarian, with a strong sense of proper behaviour. But that did not mean he was conservative or socially stuck in the mud. It was Mandela who, to the dismay of some of his fellow prisoners, was prepared toregard tolerantly the angry young members of the Black Consciousness Movement when they started arriving on Robben Island in the mid-1970s, preaching a gospel of black exclusiveness. Later, when the townships were in turmoil, hewas to be consistently conciliatory towards discontented youth.
比如说，年轻时的曼德拉曾因自己的高贵身份而冷淡了同龄人。在某些大学同学眼里，他是一个不容易接近的人，甚至还有些专权，对行为举止特别在意。但是，这并不意味着他就是一个保守之人，或者是一个更不上时代潮流的人。实际上，当“黑人觉醒运动”的年轻人从上世纪70年代中期开始陆续前往罗本岛传播黑人至上思想时，是曼德拉准备以宽容之心对待愤怒之人，这让他的一些狱友感到了失望。之后，当南非各地的城镇陷入混乱时，又是曼德拉始终坚持用和解的态度来对待同他有不同意见的年轻人。
14 Some of his own children might not have agreed, or perhaps they would have said that his efforts to understand other people's children were an acknowledgment of his failures with his own. For the contradictions and paradoxes in his views and politics were matched in his character, and nowhere was this more evident than in his relations with his family.
对此，他的一些孩子可能会有不同的意见。他们可能会说，父亲努力去理解其他人的孩子的行为等于是承认了他在理解自己的孩子上的失败。这表明，曼德拉在政治与观点中的各种矛盾与冲突都是与他的性格相符合。有关这一点，在他处理与家人之间的关系时表现的最为明显。
15 His first son, Thembi, had become estranged from his father several years before his death in a car crash in 1969( a daughter had died at nine months in 1948). Thembi had sided with his mother, Evelyn, when Mr Mandela divorced her in 1958 after a marriage of 14 fairly unhappy years. His brother, Makgatho, failed to live up to his father's expectations and moved away; he died of AIDS in 2005. Maki, Evelyn's survivingdaughter, remained on better terms but also felt neglected.
曼德拉与长子腾比关系疏远，这在腾比于1969年的一场车祸中丧生前的几年就已经变得疏远了。（曼德拉的一个女儿在1948年出生后，仅9个月就夭折了）。在此之前，当曼德拉于1958年同伊夫琳结束14年的不幸福婚姻时，腾比曾站在她的母亲一边。腾比的弟弟马克贾托因没能达到他父亲的期望，从家里搬了出去，后来在2005年死于艾滋病。在伊芙琳为曼德拉所生育的孩子中，女儿玛卡是唯一仍然还在世的孩子。他虽然一直境况较好，但是也有一种被忽视的感觉。
16 Matrimony proved just as difficult as fatherhood. At the age of 22 he had run away to Johannesburg to escape a marriage arranged for him by his guardian, the Thembu regent. Three years later,in 1944, he would marry Evelyn, the first cousin of his lifelong friend Walter Sisulu. A nurse, she bore him four children, but was drawn more to religion than politics, and politics was by then his all-absorbing concern.
事实证明，对曼德拉来说，做父亲难，做丈夫也难。他曾在22岁时跑到了约翰内斯堡，目的就是为了逃避滕布摄政王给他安排的婚姻。虽说他会在三年后的1944年同自己终生好友沃尔特·西苏卢的长侄女伊夫琳结为夫妻。伊夫琳是一名护士，曾为他生育了四个孩子。对她来说，宗教就是一切。但是，对曼德拉来说，除了政治，没有任何东西能让他全身心地投入。
17 Winnie, his second wife, whom he married in 1958, came to share his political cause, but from the first realised that “he belongs to them”, the public. This was a complaint of the children too, as Mr Mandela himself confessed. He was, one told him, “a father to all our people, but you have never had time to be a father to me.”
在1958年成为他第二任妻子的温妮虽说不是从一开始就同曼德拉有共同的政治语言的，但是这位女人早就意识到“他是属于他们的”（公众的）。就连曼德拉自己也承认，他之所以被孩子们抱怨，其原因也是如此。他说，他的一个孩子曾告诉他，你是“所有人的父亲，但是你从未拿出一点时间来，当一当我的父亲。”
18 Despite his devotion to the courageous Winnie—in his 1994 autobiography he would publish for the first time some of the poignant letters he had written to her from Robben Island—the second marriage also failed. Winnie suffered almost all the blows that apartheid had in its arsenal: banishment, imprisonment, remorseless harassment. But suffering did not ennoble her: just the opposite, and in the end she did her utmost to humiliate her husband. He was wounded, but also guilt-ridden, conscious of his failings with his wives and his children. Not until he married a wary Graça Machel, widow of Mozambique's first president, on his 80th birthday did Mr Mandela find enduring wedded fulfilment.
尽管他把自己奉献给了勇敢的温妮——他会为此而在1994年的自传中首次公开披露自己在罗本岛监狱中写给温妮的那些火辣辣的情书——但是，他的第二次婚姻还是失败了。温妮曾遭受过种族隔离制度下几乎所有的打击：流放，监禁，无休止的骚扰。但是，苦难并没有让她变得高尚起来。恰恰相反，到最后的时候，她几乎用尽了一切的办法来羞辱她的丈夫。曼德拉受到了伤害，但也由此而产生了一种负罪感，这让他意识到了自己在家庭和婚姻上的失败。直到80岁生日那天与莫桑比克前总统的遗孀格拉萨·马谢尔结婚后，曼德拉才算找到了持久的美满婚姻。
19 In love, at least, the private man was the very opposite of the public. Mr Mandela inspired affection among million she had never met and, among those he had, few failed to remark on his extraordinary ability to empathise and in return command respect. Most striking among these, perhaps, were his political opponents, especially Afrikaners, the descendants mainly of the country's early Dutch settlers.
曼德拉没有因“小爱”而忘记“大爱”。他在这方面具有一种特殊的能力，这是一种既能把爱奉献给对方，又能让对方感受到爱并且以爱相回报的能力。因此，当他在数百万认识或者不认识的人当中激发出情感时，几乎人人对他报以尊敬和信任。对此，他的政治对手是最有切身体会的，尤其是那些主要由早期荷兰定居者的后代所组成的南非白人——阿非利卡人。
20 One of the first was P.J. Bosch, the prosecutor at his 1962 trial (for leaving the country illegally and incitement to strike), who before his sentencing asked to see him alone, shook his handand wished him well. That was not exceptional. Throughout his career, he would be sharing his food with his police escort (after arrest in 1962), helpingwarders with their essays (also 1962), and earning the respect of their Robben Island counterparts by speaking to them in Afrikaans, which he studied assiduously. Later, summoned from prison to take tea with President P. W.Botha, he would show that he could charm even one whose defence of white supremacy had earned him the name of “the crocodile”. And then, when he was at last released, came the grand gestures of reconciliation: the honouring of the Boer-war guerrilla, Daniel Theron, as an Afrikaner freedom-fighter; the donning of a Springbok rugby shirt, hitherto a symbol to blacks chiefly of white nationalism; and the visit to Betsie Verwoerd, widow of Hendrik, the uncompromising architect of apartheid.
排在第一位的是在1962年那场审判中担任的检察官P.J. Bosch。当时，曼德拉的罪名是非法离境和蓄意暴动。在宣布最后判决结果前，曼德拉曾同这位检察官进行了一次单独的会面，同他握手并祝他好运。对曼德拉来说，这不是唯一一次做这种事。在以后的岁月中，他会在1962年被捕后同押解自己的警察分享食物；他会在同一年辅导看守写文章；他会在罗本岛上努力学习阿非利卡语，并因为使用这种语言同白人囚犯对话而赢得了他们的尊重。后来，当他被时任南非总统博塔招去喝茶时，他会用自己的言行告诉外界，即便是一位因坚持白人至上思想而被称为“鳄鱼”的人也会被他征服。再到后来，当他最终被释放时，他又做出了伟大的和解姿态：尊称布尔战争时的游击队员 Daniel Theron为阿非利卡人的自由斗士；穿上此前一直是白人民族主义象征的橄榄球队“绿羚队”的球衣；拜访不愿妥协的种族隔离政策建构者Hendrik的遗孀Betsie Verwoerd。
21 Some manifestations of empathy were harder for him to make. When he came out of jail the subject of sex was awkward for him. Whether that was because he had been behind bars for most of the 1960s sexual revolution, or because the many years of isolation had made him unused to female company, or because some element of reserve had remained in hisc haracter since childhood, is not clear. But he plainly found it difficult to overcome, most seriously, by his own admission, in his reluctance as president to take up the issue of AIDS. Eventually, he did so, however, openly siding in 2002 with the campaigners who were fighting for wider provision of drugs in the face of President Thabo Mbeki's cranky resistance. A lesser man might have chosen to stay silent.
但是，在面对某些问题时，曼德拉身上的这种能力似乎又突然消失了。比如说，当他结束漫长的监狱生涯而获得自由后，每每提到“性”这个话题，总会令他陷入尴尬。这到底是因为他因都身处牢房而错过了上世纪60年代的性革命，还是因为多年的隔离生活已使他在面对异性时成了一个无用之人，亦或是因为在他自童年起就已经形成的性格中存在的某些保守因素，目前还不清楚。但是，这对他来说，显然是一个难以克服的问题。另外，据他自己承认说，他在当总统时不大请愿提及提及艾滋病这个问题。不过，最后他还是这样做了。2002年，他公开地站到了正在推广药物治疗的造势者一边，以此来对抗姆贝基在这个问题上的顽固抵抗。对此，若是一个道德上“小人”的话，或许就会选择保持沉默了。
22 Mr Mandela startled ANC colleagues when, at 33, he announced that he looked forward to becoming South Africa's first black president. Yet he did not expect rewards; even when he was a figure of world renown he was modest, and seldom took his authority for granted. Time and again in jail he would refuse privileges if they were offered to him but not to other prisoners. He complained, for instance, about having to wear shorts, one of the ways in which the government humiliated and emasculated black prisoners, but rejected the long trousers he was then given—until two years later when thea uthorities agreed to let his colleagues wear them too.
当曼德拉在33岁那年宣布自己的目标是成为南非的第一位黑人总统时，他的举动震惊了非国大的同事。然而，他当时没有期待获得回报，即便是当他成为世界名人时，他仍然是一个谦恭之人，从未理所当然地认为高人一等。在服刑期间，他会一而再再而三地拒绝享有与其他囚犯不同的特权。例如，在监狱中，南非政府经常用穿短裤来羞辱和分化黑人囚犯。因此，当他被勒令穿短裤时，曼德拉就提出了抗议。但是，当监方同意发给他长裤时，他又拒绝穿长裤。直到当局在两年后同意让其他囚犯也穿长裤，他才同意穿上长裤。
23 He was proud, it is true, to be a memberof a royal family, as a descendant of Ngubengcuka, one of the Thembu kings from whom he took the traditional name, Madiba. Yet he disdained to behave like some African “big men”, always being embarrassed on Robben Island that he received more visits than other prisoners, one of whom saw only three visitors in 15 years. As a free man in the 1990s, he chose to live in suburban comfort rather than palatial luxury in Johannesburg, and in the holidays returned to Qunu, where he had spent the happiest days of his childhood, to build a house based on the design of his quarters in the Victor Verster prison that had held him during his final years of captivity. He encouraged no cult of personality. Grandiose museums, reverential monuments and statues were alien to him.
事实上，虽说曼德拉为自己是一个王室的成员——作为滕布部落的国王Ngubengcuka的后代，他拥有一个叫做“马迪巴”的部落名字——而自豪，但是他不愿意自己的行为看上去像某些非洲“大人物”那样。在罗本岛时，当他得知一个被关押了15年的囚犯在其漫长的牢狱生涯中只见到过三个访客时，他就会因为来看望他的人多于其他囚犯而心有不安。在上世纪90年代重获自由后，他没有住到约翰内斯堡的金碧辉煌官邸之中，而是选择了舒适的乡间生活。一到假日，他就会回到库奴，在这个他曾经渡过童年最快乐时光的地方，依照牢狱生涯最后几年的维尔斯特监狱的牢房布局建造了一座房子。他鼓励人们不要搞个人崇拜。对他来说，富丽堂皇的博物馆，为他而建的纪念碑和雕塑都是陌生的。
24 But flash suits, white silk scarves and a physical-fitness regimen at least partly designed to maintain a boxer's muscular physique were not. He was no stranger to vanity, and would make gooduse of his appearance. In his youth, his looks and smart suits had done him no harm among female admirers. He was then considered more at ease with women than with men. Later, when he donned a kaross, a traditional Xhosa leopard-skin cloak, to appear in court, he knew it would “emphasise the symbolism that I was a black African walking into a white man's court.” This proved electrifying.
但是，合体的西装、白色丝质围巾，以及至少可以让一位拳击手保持肌肉线条的养生秘诀则不在他的反对范围之内。他不是名利场上的稀客，他知道如何发挥自己的长处。年轻时，他曾因得体的西装和英俊的外表吸引了一大批女性崇拜者，甚至一度被认为是更善于同异性打交道。后来，当他穿上科萨族的传统豹皮斗篷出现在法庭上时，他知道，他这样做是在“强化一种象征意义：我是一个正走进白人法庭的黑非洲人。”事实证明，他确实因此而引起了轰动。
25 It suited the ANC to make a messiah, and if necessary a myth, out of Mr Mandela, first to galvanise the masses at home, then to keep spirits up during the long years of repression, military impotence and political hopelessness. It could have ended badly. The mythic figure whose defiance so captured the public imagination—Prisoner 466/64 on RobbenI sland—could have turned out to be a broken man or a paper hero. Instead, he proved to be a remarkably effective politician.
非国大把他说成是一位圣人，如有必要，他们还可能他塑造成一个神话。他们这样做是符合他们的利益的。首先，他们可以借此激励国内民众；其次，在面对南非当局的镇压，在军事无力，政治无望的情况下，他们可以借此在漫长的岁月中，保持昂扬的斗志。但是，这也有可能适得其反。因为吸引众人想象力的神话人物——罗本岛上的466/64号囚犯——可能到头来只是一个失败之人或是一位“纸英雄”。不过，曼德拉没有让非国大失望。他以实际行动证明，自己是一个非常能干的政治家。
26 Mr Mandela made political mistakes. The decision to abandon non-violence lost the ANC some support abroad, put no real military pressure on the government and, most seriously, diverted the movement's energies from the task of organisation at home, which was essential if strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience were to be effective. Mr Mandela, who had set so much store by strengthening the ANC, a small and weak organisation when he joined it, might have foreseen that.
曼德拉曾经犯过某些政治错误。比如说，放弃非暴力路线；不以真正的军事行动对政府施压；更为重要的是，将非国大的主要精力转移到为在国内举行罢工、罢课以及非暴力抵抗活动所需要的组织工作上来。这些决定虽然让非国大失去了来自国外的支持，但却是非常有效的，并且这也可能是曼德拉早有预见的地方。为此，他建立了相当多的储备，把他在加入之时尚现弱小的非国大建成了一个强大的政党。
27 But without him the transition to majority rule would almost certainly have been a bloody shambles. First, he decided in 1985 to ask for a meeting with the minister of justice, Kobie Coetsee, who had become interested in his case. Mr Mandela did this without telling his colleagues, let alone seeking their approval, since he knew it would not have been given. But, as he later explained, “There are times when a leader must move ahead of his flock.” He then played a vital role in ensuring compromise during the negotiations that preceded the constitutional settlement of 1993-94 and the election that followed.
但是，如果没有他，政权的转换几乎肯定会变成一场流血的灾难。首先，是他在1985年时请求会见了当时已经对他的案子变得渐有兴趣的司法部长科比·库切。但是，曼德拉这样做之前并没有告诉他的同事，更别提征得他们的同意了。因为，他知道这些人不会同意他做法。但是，正如他后来所解释的那样，“有时，领导人必须走在队伍的前方。”随后，又是他在确保和解的两次谈判过程中扮演了一个关键的角色。一次是在敲定1993年-1994年宪法之前，一次是在随后举行的大选之前。
28 He alone could sway opinion for or against the acceptance of agreements, which was crucial in the case of the constitution, greeted by many ANC supporters with disappointment. He alone could assuage the fury of the crowds after Chris Hani, a popular ANC hero, was murdered by a right-wing Afrikaner. He was also central in securing the support of General Constand Viljoen and thus the Afrikaner far right. Later he was equally influential in the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission,when a different man who had been through the same experiences might have been calling for war-crimes tribunals.
他仅凭一己之力就左右了在宪法制定过程中出现的各种意见，而这些意见对于这部不受非国大支持者待见的宪法来说又是十分关键的；他仅凭一己之力就平息了民众在非国大英雄克里斯·哈尼被一位右翼的阿非利卡人谋杀后所燃起的怒火；他还在确保获得 Constand Viljoen将军以及极右翼的阿非利卡人的支持方面发挥了关键的作用。后来，他又在成立“真相与和解委员会”的过程中发挥了同等重要的影响力。当时，若是换做另一个与曼德拉有过相同的经历的人来处理此事，他号召设立的很可能就是战争罪法庭了。
29 Mr Mandela did not single-handedly end apartheid. The collapse of communism, yoked to African nationalism by white opponents, played a part; so did international sanctions, domestic economic pressures, non-ANC internal resistance and the person of F.W. de Klerk, president from 1989 to 1994, whom Mr Mandela did not treat altogether well. But Mr Mandela's symbolic role was hard to exaggerate.
曼德拉不是单枪匹马地终结了种族隔离制度。被白人对手强加于非洲民主主义之上的共产主义的崩溃也在其中起了一部分作用。另外，国际制裁、来自南非国内的经济压力、除去非国大之外的内部抵抗，以及在1989年-1994年间担任总统、却并未受到曼德拉善待的F·W·德克勒克也功不可没。但是，曼德拉的象征性作用绝不是夸大之词。
30 His greater achievement, though, was tosee the need for reconciliation, to for swear retribution and then to act as midwife to a new, democratic South Africa built on the rule of law. This was something only he could do. He gave hope to millions of Africans and inspired millions of others elsewhere, but if his successors in government have been less admirable, and if his example has not been followed in countries like Zimbabwe, that should not be surprising. Heroic though he was, he did not have the messianic powers some attributed to him, nor could others be expected to match his capacity to hold high principles, to live by them and to use his moral stature to such effect. Circumstances, after all, could hardly suiteveryone so well. Hard though much of his life had been, Mr Mandela lived long enough to see his work through. That gave him his great achievement, and the story of his long walk to freedom a happy ending. And the modern world loves ahappy hero even more than a tragic one.
然而，他的更伟大之处在于发现了和解的必要，放弃了报复，然后又以一位助产士的身份，给世界带来了一个建立在法治之上的民主新南非。这是只有他才能完成的事业。他在给数千万非洲人带来了希望的同时，还激发起了世界其他区的数千万人的希望。但是，如果他的接班人不能像他一样受人爱戴，如果他的榜样没有被津巴布韦这样的国家所遵循，这并不会令人感到吃惊。尽管他是一个英雄，曼德拉并没有某些人所说的救世主的力量，但是没人能像他那样始终坚持原则，身体力行，用高尚的道德来感化人，达成了这样的影响。毕竟，是时势造英雄，而不是英雄造时势。尽管他历尽苦难，但是曼德拉终究在活着的时候看到了自己事业的成功。这让他有了一种成就感，他的通向自由的漫长之旅的故事也有了一个幸福的结尾。对于我们活着的人来说，快乐英雄胜过一个悲剧英雄。
