全球十大最苦政治崗位

I couldn’t ignore the email inviting me to meet the person “with the worst job in global politics”. He wasn’t a world leader or a central bank governor. His name is Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati and he’s the minister for human rights in Iraq. What could be more challenging than that?

我無法忽視那封邀請我與一位從事“全球政界最差工作”的人會面的電子郵件。他不是哪國的領導人或央行行長。他的名字是穆罕默德•馬赫迪•巴亞提(Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati)，他是伊拉克的人權部長。還有哪個工作能比這個更有挑戰性呢？

He has to deal on a daily basis with horrific abuses against his people, ranging from killings to beheadings, from enslavement to torture. The government he works for can’t rely on a properly trained army, military capabilities or good neighbours. And while the minister’s experience in the field may be first hand — he was in opposition to a politial opponent of Saddam Hussein and many members of his family had been arrested and tortured — his staff and the security forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis ) need training in human rights, and he was in London to ask for help.

巴亞提的日常工作就是處理他的人民所受到的種種可怕虐待，範圍從屠殺到斬首，從奴役到酷刑。他所服務的政府既缺乏受過適當訓練的軍隊，也沒有能依賴的軍事能力或不錯的鄰國。巴亞提曾反對過薩達姆•侯賽因(Saddam Hussein)的一個政敵，他的多名家人遭到過逮捕和虐待，因此他在人權領域擁有第一手經驗，但他的工作人員和安全部隊需要接受人權培訓來抵抗“伊拉克和黎凡特伊斯蘭國”(ISIS)，於是他來到倫敦尋求幫助。

I meet him at a Park Lane hotel and he tells me about the atrocities committed by the jihadis of Isis: the swathes of villages devastated, the churches destroyed, and the more than 3,000 women prisoners from the Yazidi sect taken hostage. “Some of the women were sold for cash, some are being bought by people who give them back to their families, some were made slaves to Isis leaders.”

我在公園徑的一家酒店裏見到了他，他告訴我ISIS的聖戰者犯下的暴行：大片村莊陷入混亂，清真寺被毀，雅茲迪(Yazidi)教派的三千多名婦女被劫持爲人質。“有些婦女被賣掉，有些人買下她們後將她們送還給她們的家人，有些婦女淪爲ISIS頭目的奴隸。”

The discussion takes an even more worrying turn, however, when we talk about why his country is facing this predicament. He absolves the former government of abuses against Iraq’s Sunni minority, which is widely acknowledged to be one of the factors that allowed Isis to thrive, and also dismisses the number of human rights violations committed by Shia militias as “tiny”. I leave the hotel thinking that he will still have the most awful job in the world a year from now.

然而當我們談到爲什麼他的國家會面臨這種困境時，談話轉向了更令人擔憂的方向。他開脫了前任政府對伊拉克遜尼派少數羣體的暴行，而這恰是人們廣泛認爲令ISIS發展壯大的因素之一，他還將什葉派民兵侵犯人權行爲的數量斥爲“微不足道”。我離開酒店的時候想，一年後他的工作仍將是全世界最可怕的。

I’ve been consulting colleagues in the past week about other examples of thankless political jobs. Here’s the list, including a few that are politically relevant, even if not strictly political.

前段時間我一直在與同事們討論，還有哪些吃力不討好的政治工作。以下是我們討論出來的清單，其中有幾個工作即使不是嚴格意義上的政治工作，但也與政治有關。

1. Walter Gwenigale, Liberia’s health minister, ousted last month, probably to his relief. His country has had the highest death toll from Ebola and he’s been the target of mounting criticism.

1. 利比里亞衛生部部長沃爾特•格韋尼蓋爾(Walter Gwenigale)，雖然上月被罷免，但可能是他的解脫。他的國家的埃博拉(Ebola)患者死亡人數是最多的，令他成爲衆矢之的。

2. Ron Patrick, head of recruitment for the US Central Intelligence Agency. This was never an easy job but the scale of torture revealed in last week’s Senate report now makes it much harder. Imagine the grilling he will be receiving from applicants.

2. 美國中情局(CIA)招聘部門主管羅恩•帕特里克(Ron Patrick)。這本就不是一份容易的工作，但前不久參議院報告所公佈的虐囚規模令這份工作更加艱難。可想而知，他將受到求職者怎樣的盤問。

3. Lord Hill, Britain’s EU commissioner for financial services. He has to protect the City of London and promote eurozone integration when the UK is increasingly unpopular in Brussels, and might even be plotting its EU exit.

3.英國的歐盟(EU)金融服務專員希爾勳爵(Lord Hill)。英國在布魯塞爾越來越不受待見，且甚至可能在策劃退出歐盟，他卻依舊得保護倫敦金融城和促進歐元區一體化。

4. Jonathan Blackman, Argentina’s lawyer in the long-running saga with hedge funds. The partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has fought Argentina’s corner as it defaulted on debt to holdout creditors — and has had to contend with occasional surprises from his own client.

4.長期與對衝基金抗爭的阿根廷律師喬納森•布萊克曼(Jonathan Blackman)。在阿根廷對“釘子戶”債權人違約時，這位佳利律師事務所(Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton)的合夥人一直維護阿根廷的利益，偶爾他還得面對來自他自己客戶的“驚喜”。

5. Kim Jong Un’s hair stylist, a job done at great personal risk. The razor sides and high-top style became an export sensation this year after (unconfirmed) reports that North Korean men were ordered to adopt it.

5. 金正恩(Kim Jong Un)的髮型師，這是一份需要冒着極大個人危險的工作。有報道稱（未經證實）朝鮮男人被命令剪成金正恩頭後，這種將兩側頭髮剃短、頭頂梳高的髮型造成了出口轟動。

6. Ashraf Ghani, president of Afghanistan. He spent weeks quarreling with a rival over the dubious results of the June presidential election and it took John Kerry, US secretary of state, to broker a deal that secured him the top job. He may soon regret his victory.

6.阿富汗總統阿什拉夫•加尼(Ashraf Ghani)。他與一位競爭對手就6月總統大選的可疑結果爭吵了好幾個星期，還是在美國國務卿約翰•克里(John Kerry)的促成下達成一項協議才得以保住他的最高職位。他可能很快會後悔自己的勝利。

7. John Kerry, US secretary of state. Hugely powerful job but relentlessly frustrating, particularly over the past year, in which Mr Kerry’s months-long pursuit of Middle East peace collapsed, as did his peace plans for Syria. Not to mention that the biggest global diplomatic crisis, over Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, is at a dead end while Iraq has imploded.

7.美國國務卿約翰•克里。這份工作擁有巨大的權力，但總是令人受挫，特別是在過去的一年，克里對中東和平長達數月的追求宣告失敗，而他對敘利亞的和平計劃也是如此。更不用提全球最大的外交危機——俄羅斯對烏克蘭的干預——陷入僵局，還有伊拉克局面失控。

8. Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Syria. His “peace facilitation” job, to which he was appointed in July, is likely to prove as unachievable as the efforts of his predecessors, Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi.

8. 聯合國(UN)祕書長敘利亞事務特使斯塔凡•德米斯圖拉(Staffan de Mistura)。今年7月他被委以“促進和平”的重任，他很可能無法完成這一任務，就像他的前任科菲•安南(Kofi Annan)和拉赫達爾•卜拉希米(Lakhdar Brahimi)一樣。

9. Mystery French scooter driver. Again, not a political appointment but François Hollande’s security guard was a key man in the president’s alleged nocturnal visits to his lover, an actor. The job involved long hours, furtive driving and the arms of the leader of France around his waist.

9. 神祕的法國摩托車司機。這同樣不是政治工作，但在弗朗索瓦•奧朗德(François Hollande)夜會他所謂的情人——一位演員時，這位總統的保鏢扮演了關鍵角色。該工作需要長時間守候、鬼鬼祟祟的駕駛，腰間還要環繞着法國領導人的胳膊。