英国新闻听力 对英国帮瓦努阿图对付飓风的思考（在线收听）

Good morning. As we have been hearing, the monster Cyclone Pam has devastated the islands of Vanuatu. President Lonsdale has appealed for a helping hand, and I'm so pleased that Britain, along with a number of others, has responded by pledging up to two million pounds in aid.

The Vanuatu disaster came at the end of a week in which Parliament passed a bill which made the aid spend of naught point seven percent of gross national product a legal requirement and became the first G7 country to meet the UN's 45-year-old target. Despite arguments for such aid contributing to stability and security, some opponents have called it absurd and foolish, not least in the light of needs at home.

A different kind of foolishness was on display on Friday when Comic Relief raised a record seventy eight million pounds to take its thirty year total to one billion. As Billy Connolly said, 'All the silly nonsense of Red Nose Day is about the serious business of helping people change their lives'. It's a remarkable achievement to raise money out of Dermot O'Leary's dancing and David Walliams' kissing - and a remarkable testimony to the generosity of the British people.

When it comes to asking for a helping hand, you can preach it as a moral imperative or you can celebrate a common humanity through a combination of stories of need and shared laughter. Indeed, foolishness is not a bad way to change the world. In his recent book, 'Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men and Other Non-Violent Techniques to Galvanise Communities, Overthrow Dictators or Simply Change the World', Srdja Popovic one of the founders of the Otpor movement which played a key part in seeing off Milosevic in Serbia, argues that change happens as a result of careful planning, enthusiasm and importantly humour. The foolish and the absurd can subvert the status quo and give a different picture of the world.

This was in fact part of the ministry of Jesus. He used the image of a camel trying to squeeze itself through the eye of a needle to subvert the assumption that the rich could easily get into the Kingdom of God. At a deeper level, God's non-violent self-giving love embodied in the life and death of Jesus can be dismissed as foolish but I and others see it at the very heart of being fully human.

In 2006 Vanuatu was classified as the happiest place on earth, not least because of the welcome, hospitality and care for the outsider, despite the poverty of its people. Perhaps as we give so we can learn.

早上好，我们听说飓风帕姆袭击了瓦努阿图群岛。总统朗斯代尔呼吁获得援助，我很高兴看到英国等多个国家已经作出回应，承诺提供200万英镑的援助。

瓦努阿图群岛灾难是在周末来临的，当时议会刚通过一项法案，法律规定援助开支占国民生产总值0.7%，并使英国成为七国集团中第一个满足这个联合国规定了45年的目标。尽管此类援助对稳定和安全的帮助仍在争议中，一些反对者称这是荒唐和愚蠢的，尤其是没有考虑到国内的需要。

周五发生了另一种不同的蠢事，喜剧救济基金会筹集了创纪录的7900万英镑，这样该基金会30年来筹集的资金总额达到10亿英镑。正如比利·康诺利所说，“红鼻子慈善日里所做的所有蠢事就是帮助人们改变生活状况的正经事。”德莫特奥利里通过跳舞、大卫·威廉姆斯只需亲吻就可筹集到资金，这是一件了不起的成就，这是英国人慷慨的绝妙例证。

在请求帮助这件事上，你可以将之宣传为道德义务，或者通过讲需要帮助者的故事或分享欢笑就可以体现人性。确实，在改变世界这个问题上，蠢事并不是糟糕的办法。Otpor运动的发起人之一、曾在塞尔维亚为米洛舍维奇道别的斯尔加·波波维奇最近推出新书《蓝图的革命：如果用米饭布丁、乐高人偶和其他非暴力技术激励社会，推翻独裁者或只是改变世界?》,他在书中说，改变是精心策划、热心和幽默的结果，其中幽默很重要。愚蠢和荒谬能颠覆现状，让世界展现全新的面貌。

耶稣在传教中也经过类似情况，他使用试图钻进针眼骆驼的形象来颠覆这样的看法，即富人可以轻易地进入天国。从深层次来看，上帝非暴力且无私的爱体现在耶稣的生死之中，而这也会被一些人认为是愚蠢的，但我和其他人从这里看到有人性的心灵。

2006年瓦努阿图被评为全世界最幸福的地方，不仅是因为当地人对外来者的热情、好客和关心，尽管当地人还很穷。可能当我们给予的时候我们就能从中领悟学习。