Sure, maybe you hate Lady Gaga. Or perhaps you think The Killers deserve to be shot out of a cannon. Or maybe you just believe Lindsay Lohan should officially be declared an oxygen thief. But the thing is, no matter what the fervour of your passion, or whoever your hated celebrity of choice may be, when it boils down to it these people are really only minnows in the grand scheme of despicable humanity. Small asides in our understanding of the venerable field of "douchebaggery". Well, except for Lindsay Lohan. Man, she sucks.

So if not the world of pop and Hollywood, who then might be a worthy target for all the viscous blackness that you hold within your soul? Well, if you really, really want people to hate, people who are absolutely and truly worthy of every skerrick of venom and bile that you can muster, then I assure you there simply is no alternative: you need to turn to the wacky, wonderful and occasionally/always depressing world of international politics. Home of the assholes. From genocide to political persecution, from ethnic cleansing to oppressing the peasantry, from abuse of natural resources to renaming bread after your mother (I'm looking at you Turkmenistan), the global political scene truly is a non-stop barrel of laughs... Which is why today on The Seventh Estate we begin a whimsical and heart-warming two part journey into the Worst Humans in the World. Beginning, of course, at number 10:

10.  Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow (President of Turkmenistan)


The best thing you can say about Gurbanguly Mälikgulyýewiç Berdimuhamedow is that he's better than his predecessor, Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov (Jesus, try saying that sentence three times fast - this country is a BBC foreign correspondent's nightmare). Although considering that his predecessor had, amongst other things, banned the internet, renamed the months and days after various family members and national heroes, changed the word for "bread" to his mother's name, prohibited men from having long hair or growing beards, banned video games, car radios, lip-synching and playing recorded music on TV or at weddings, and closed all national parks, rural libraries and hospitals outside the capital, one could perhaps argue that this wasn't an overly high hurdle to surmount.

And, to his credit, Berdimuhamedow has in fact rolled back many of the more absurd and draconian of Niyazov's policies. However, in reality, these changes have largely served as a smokescreen for what continues to be the most repressive regime in a generally repressive region, founded in a President with the power to rule by absolute decree. And even though men are now allowed to grow beards, they're still not allowed to express a political opinion, vote freely, openly follow their religion, read a politically neutral newspaper or be Russian. Well, they can technically be Russian. But it's really not advised.

Summary: Better than the guy before him, but still a monomanical shitstick.

9. Rupert Murdoch (President of News Corporation)



Good God, look at him. He looks like someone has attached a toupee, googly eyes and glasses to a testicle.

Having never (to the best of my knowledge) had anyone killed, tortured or imprisoned, Rupert Murdoch might seem a little bit out of place on this list, and I will admit there's at least a light edge of personal vendetta to his inclusion. However, to my mind the man has so thoroughly, willfully and flagrantly used his immense power, wealth and media control to debase and destroy the concept of a free and effective press that he can rightfully shoulder his way into this august list. He's also the only figure to be included from an advanced, Western democracy, so three cheers for Rupert then.

But seriously, no other human on Earth has directed so much of their energy into destroying the idea of news and newsworthiness. Murdoch has spent his career remodelling the news as just another form of entertainment, a model of journalism catering solely to a perceived lowest common denominator, and consequently helping to reduce the political process to a sequence of scandals and histrionic debates about nothing. This is, after all, the man who has given us topless Page 3 girls in the UK and Fox News in the US. The latter of which is also perhaps the most obvious symbol of the generally reductionist, hypocritical, ultra-conservative and all round dickish political slant that Murdoch applies to all his media investments. Hell, he even bought the previously liberal Wall Street Journal a couple of years back almost entirely so he could wage an open war against the New York Times, one of America's final bastions of intellectually geared and investigative journalism.

There is also a reasonable argument to be made that he both a) got George W. Bush elected a second time; and b) made Sarah Palin a politically viable figure, which are really, really two things that do not help his case any.

Summary: Has done more to reduce the content level of your average news source than most dictators could even dream of.

8. King Mswati III (King of Swaziland)



One of the world's few remaining absolute monarchs, King Mswati III enjoys all the perks that one might imagine would accrue to an absolute monarch. These include luxury cars, multiple palaces and 14 wives, a number of whom he married while they were still at school. I think they probably left school shortly after. He also enjoys not having to think too much about the welfare of his people and his immense wealth - being personally worth a reported $US100 million - can be helpfully set in contrast to the 60% of the population that lives on less than $US1.25 a day. He has also mismanaged the AIDS crisis on a scale remarkable even in the ranks of sub-Saharan African nations, presiding over a country where 26.1% of the general population and 50% of those in their twenties are HIV-positive. I can only imagine that those figures are not equally represented amongst the ranks of his many wives. His solution though was obvious: all HIV positive people should be "sterilised and branded". This, fortunately, was not put into practice.

Summary: Lives in a royal bubble, completely oblivious to the suffering of his people. Absolute monarch? More like absolute DICK. OH, BURN!

7. Omar Al-Bashir (President of Sudan)



Omar Al-Bashir's inclusion in this list can probably be summed up in one word: Darfur. A few years back the genocide in Darfur was one of the world's pre-eminent issues, even managing to chalk up the unenviable distinction of being one of the rare occasions when a sitting US President has labelled an ongoing conflict 'genocide'. This happens so rarely because using the word 'genocide' invokes the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a UN treaty that in theory requires nations to intervene when another nation is going to town on its own people. Of course, this didn't happen and Omar Al-Bashir continued merrily on his way (the International Criminal Court did issue the Sudanese Government with a warrant for his arrest, but I'd say there's more chance of me waking up tomorrow as a pygmy gerboa than there is of them giving Al-Bashir up), although it should be noted that the conflict in Darfur has cooled markedly over the past couple of years and at this point could almost be downgraded from 'genocide' to 'general rape and pillage'.

Al-Bashir has also severely repressed political opposition parties, been a long-running and enthusiastic state sponsor of terrorism and oversaw one of Africa's longest running and most brutal civil wars.

Nice guy.

Summary: Darfur. And other stuff. But mostly Darfur.

6. Muammar al-Gaddafi (President of Libya)
 

Colonel Gaddafi. De facto leader and unchallenged dictator of Libya since 1969. Official "Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution". Owner of a truly astonishing array of hats. Not that the hats really justify his entry into this list, but after 41 years of rule, the guy has still managed to accrue quite a lot of asshole points. He has followed the route of most socialist dictatorships by using his apparent love of the people as an excuse to become fabulously rich and politically indulgent while the people, by and large, remained poor and politically unrepresented.

However, Gaddafi has definitely mellowed in recent years, going from being one of the world's pre-eminent supporters of terrorism, both locally and abroad, to becoming a generally entertaining and largely innocuous figure in the international political scene (did you see his 100 minute speech at the UN last year? While obviously an absolute nutbar the man is still a comic genius). Nonetheless, conditions in Libya are far from ideal and Gaddafi remains in power through a heady mix of media control, a compromised judiciary, political repression, ethnic and religious discrimination and all those freaking hats.

Summary: So many hats. So many human rights abuses.

Coming up in Part 2, we enter the final countdown, running through the five worst people currently tarnishing humanity's good name. Not that we have a lot of reputation left after the events of the 20th century, but still when the aliens arrive it's probably for the best that these guys aren't the first people we introduce them to.


READ PART 2 NOW