英语听力精选进阶版 10725（在线收听）

Coming back to these shores having spent some weeks in America, it’s been fascinating to compare the general election campaign here with the presidential campaign just launched there.

刚刚在美国呆了几周回来，将那里的总统选举与本国的大选运动相比是很有趣的事。

There are some striking differences. For instance, in America one of the first things presidential candidates have been boasting about is how much money they’ve raised. Somehow I can’t imagine candidates doing the same here, where we still feel, I think, that votes shouldn’t be something money can buy.

两者存着着很大的差异，比如，在美国，总统候选人会夸口的一件事是自己筹款多少，我无法想象本国的候选人这么做，而且我仍感觉选票不应该是可以用钱买来的。

Then again much of the talk in America is about the various segments of the electorate. Can candidate X win the Hispanic vote, or the evangelical vote, or the African American vote, whereas here, it seems to me, we still think of voters as individuals, who have views independent of their ethnicity or religion or lack of it. And those are attitudes worth valuing and protecting.

美国谈论最多的是选民的各个不同的部分，某某候选人是否能赢得拉美裔选民的支持？或者福音派选民、非裔美国选民的支持？而在本国，在我看来，我们似乎仍在将选民当做个体来看待，他们的观点与他们是否有种族或宗教特点相独立，这种态度值得珍视和保护。

But despite the differences I find myself thinking more and more about what a difficult achievement democracy is and how much history had to be worked through and how pain endured before Britain and America arrived at it.

但尽管有差异，我发现自己越来越多地思考，民主是件多么艰难的成就，以及必须历经多少历史才能实现民主，以及英国和美国在实现民主之前要经历多少阵痛。

Just a quarter of a century ago, as the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union imploded and the Cold War came to an end, people spoke as if democracy had won its final battle and would now spread throughout the world. Then almost immediately, we were faced with bloody ethnic war in the former Yugoslavia.

就在25年前，柏林墙倒塌，苏联崩溃，冷战结束，人们谈论的样子好像民主已经赢得了最终战役，将很快在全世界遍地开花。然后很快，我们面对的是前南斯拉夫血腥的种族战争。

Just four years ago, with the Arab Spring, again it seemed as if democracy was about to spread throughout the Middle East. And instead again there has been bloodshed and civil war.

就在4年前阿拉伯之春开始之时，情况看起来似乎民主又要传遍整个中东地区，但相反我们看到的是流血和内战。

There is nothing natural about democracy. It’s the legacy of two great ancient civilisations, Greece, that gave us the word ‘democracy’ itself, and the Judeo Christian heritage that said that we are all equally in the image and likeness of God and should therefore have an equal say in deciding our collective future.

民主并非自然形成的，它是两大古代文明的结晶，希腊给了我们“民主”一词，而犹太基督教遗产告诉我们，我们都是按照上帝的形象创造出来的，因此应该能平等地决定我们共同的未来。

Its first stirrings came in the seventeenth century after Europe had been ravaged by religious war. That was when Milton, Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke, turned to the Hebrew Bible and there found the idea of the wrongness of ruling over others against their will. Full democracy still took time, but that’s where it began.

民主第一次萌芽是在17世纪，当时欧洲刚刚遭遇过宗教战争。然后弥尔顿、霍布斯、斯宾诺沙和洛克开始求助于希伯来圣经，然后发现了违反他人意愿统治他人这一观点的错误性。完全的民主需要花费时间，但却是在那时开始萌芽的。

So when people speak of an election campaign being boring, I say: three cheers for boredom once you consider what the alternatives really are. Democracy is one of the great achievements of humankind and we should never take it for granted.

所以当人们认为选举活动很无聊时，我要说：一旦你考虑民主之外还有其他选择，那么就为这种无聊喝彩三声。民主是人类最伟大的成就之一，我们不应该视之为理所当然。