大约在凌晨2点钟的时候，我儿子安迪开始在睡梦中又踢又蹬并尖叫。我当时就在他旁边写作。我立即冲过去把他摇醒并轻轻拍他让他重新入睡。我知道他又做恶梦了。他通常会在第二天告诉我他梦见了大老虎要吃他，或者老妖怪要抓他等等。可是今天是2月11号，我相信小孩子的灵性。我不用问他梦见了什么。去年的这一天，他跟我们一起经受了一个5岁的小孩不该受的惊吓和恐惧。他的恶梦和我自己的无数恶梦一样，无论经过梦境如何的变异，会永远地在我们去年2月11号的苦难经历中找到原始的样本和印迹。就是在重获自由6个多月后的今天，我仍然很难测量2月11号在我儿子小小的心灵和我们自己心灵上所刻下的伤痕有多深。
2001年的2月11号无疑是我有生以来所经历的最黑暗，最恐惧，和最难忘的一天。然而，2001年的2月11日却是让我驱除蒙蔽，心智顿开，重新介定生活方向的一天。
“2.11”永远地改变了我的生活。在“2.11”只前，我是个庸碌的学人，把与中国有关的研究当作职业的一部分，虽然勤苦地积累知识，却不曾对共产主义和中共政权的本质作真正的知识分子式的追寻。现在我准确地明了我的学术方向和使命，决意严肃承担知识分子对社会和学术的使命。在“2.11”之前我的政治态度暧昧，道德判断模糊，现在我坚实地站在人道和人权的地基之上，决意勇敢捍卫人类的自由和尊严，尤其是中国人的。我带着伤痛和不间断的恶梦庆祝这个变化。我庆祝自己终于能够超越一己私心从而认定并且坚持一个高尚的事业：争取中国以及世界所有地方人的人权和尊严。
现在正是中国春节期间。中国的春节是家庭成员团聚的时候。可是我不能跟我的父母亲人在一起乐融融地欢享人间亲情。不单是我。在中国还有无数的政治犯，良心犯不能与家人团聚，只能毫无选择地在阴冷黑暗的监牢里浪费宝贵的生命。在他们中间，有66岁的方富明，已被关押两年，浑身是病，两次庭审，不判不放；曲炜，他的罪过就是认识并与几个有海外背景的学者交换学术见解；牛津博士徐泽荣，获罪13年就因为追寻一个50年前的历史事实。在中国，每天都有人被非法对待，严酷逼迫，秘密审讯，送押远地，在饥饿和苦役中“改造思想。”
还有几天布什总统就要访问中国。我想借此机会向总统进一言：请布什总统把中国的人权议题放到你的访华议程的最高度。请布什总统规劝中国政府：停止镇压异议分子，释放政治和良心犯，还人民他们应该享有的基本权利，包括宗教自由，学术自由和思想自由。并请布什总统告诫中国政府，不可滥用美国的反恐战争在中国国内镇压政治，宗教异己人士和少数民族，制造国家恐怖。
我们今天聚集在这里纪念一个特别的日子，不是为了发泄个人怨毒，而是为了要提醒世人尊重人的自由与尊严的重要性，以使更多的人参加到维护人的基本权利的行列中来，直到普天下的人都享有自由和公正。就我个人来说，套用国务卿鲍威尔的一句话，我永远不会从这一目的的明确性上推缩下来。
英文原文如下：(chinesenewsnet.com)
Commemorating the One-Year Anniversary of My Detention:Gao Zhan(chinesenewsnet.com)
Feb. 11, 2002(chinesenewsnet.com)
At about 2 O’clock last night, my son, Andrew, started to turn, kick and scream in his sleep. I was at his side writing. I rushed to wake him up. I knew it was another nightmare in which, as he would later tell me, he was being bitten or swallowed by a giant tiger or some other fierce animal. I woke him up but didn’t bother to ask what was in his dream this time. I just know that part of his nightmare, just like mine, is rooted in and can forever be traced back to what we experienced on this day last year. Six months have passed since we have regained our freedom, but we still cannot fathom how deep are the wounds in the little mind of my six-year-old and or even in ourselves.(chinesenewsnet.com)
Feb.11, 2001 was no doubt the darkest, most horrifying, and most unforgettable day in my life. Yet, Feb.11, 2001 was also a day of eye opening, mind wakening, and the most important defining moment in my life. (chinesenewsnet.com)
My life has forever been changed by 2-11. Before the 2-11 incident, I was the everyday scholar doing research on China mainly for my own everyday academic pursuits. Before 2-11, I was an ambitious pursuer of knowledge, but I failed to engage in crucial intellectual inquiry□that of questioning the true nature of the Chinese Communist Regime. Before, I walked a fence wondering which way to go. Now I stand firmly on the ground ready to defend the principles of human dignity and freedom. Before, I was ambiguous, now I am clear in what I should do in the future. I celebrate the change even though it came with pain. I celebrate my own transcendence from the everyday mundane concerns about my own existence to that of identifying and embracing a noble cause of fighting for human rights for people in China and all over the world. I want to let the Chinese Communist regime know that I haven’t suffered this ordeal in vain: 2-11 has given me a new direction and a strong sense of purpose in my life. (chinesenewsnet.com)
Tomorrow is the Chinese New Year. This holiday is traditionally a time for family members to get together. But I cannot be together with my parents and my siblings to have a traditional Chinese meal. Not only I, but there are tens of thousands of political prisoners□prisoners of conscience□in China who are not allowed to be with their families. They don’t have any choice but to stay in their dim, cold cells wasting their precious lives away. Among them are: 66-year-old Fong Fuming who has been detained for 23 months, Qu Wei whose only crime was being friends with several U.S.-based China scholars, Xu Ze Rong, an Oxford doctorate who was sentenced to 13 years in prison for pursuing historical facts about China. And just days ago, a 70ish professor was removed from his home for publishing an academic journal addressing China’s environmental problems. Everyday in China there are freedom-fighting people being unlawfully treated, unjustly persecuted, secretly tried, sent to remote areas and forced to remold their minds.(chinesenewsnet.com)
In just a few days, President Bush will visit China. I have something to say to our president. President Bush, please put human rights high on your agenda when you meet with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Please ask President Jiang Zemin to stop persecuting dissidents, to release political prisoners, and to give the Chinese people their fundamental human rights, including religious freedom, academic freedom and the freedom of thought. President Bush, please tell President Jiang Zemin that the United States and the international world will not tolerate human rights abuses in China in any form, nor the misuse of the United States’war against terrorism. (chinesenewsnet.com)
Ladies and gentlemen, we gather here today to commemorate 2-11, not to vent our personal sentiments, but to mark the importance of respect for human liberty and to engage more people in the noble cause of fighting for the protection of human rights until there is liberty and justice for all in China and in the whole world. (chinesenewsnet.com)
In the words of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, I will never shrink back from this clarity of purpose.
