Last update - 00:00 29/09/2006
Kazakhstan moves to combat Sacha Baron Cohen's satirical buffoonery
By News Agencies
ALMATY, Kazakhstan - Gleaming hotels and the region's best pastrami sandwiches, cash machines and the planet's largest population of wolves: these are among things Kazakhs want the world to know about their country - not the outrageous antics of comedy sensation Borat.
Kazakhstan placed four-page advertising inserts this week in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune to spread the word about the misunderstood ex-Soviet country.
Authorities said the move was meant coincide with President Nursultan Nazarbayev's visit to the United States - where he was to meet President George W. Bush on Friday. But it also came as the creator of the fictional Kazakh reporter - British comic Sacha Baron Cohen fictional - was launching a full-length movie based on the character.
In the movie, Borat Sagdiyev, portrays Kazakhs as a nation of misogynists, racists and anti-Semites whose favourite drink is fermented horse urine.
The homophobic, English-mangling character - who has also presented rape and incest as respectable hobbies in Kazakhstan - has mortified the government of the Central Asian nation.
In its ad, the outraged country is touting its cash machines, sushi bars, and high-tech conference centers - all product of rapidly cascading oil wealth. The newspaper insert sings the praises of the energy-rich country's nuclear disarmament campaign, its breathtaking natural resources, its break-neck economic growth.
Kazakhstan, although the world's ninth-largest country by area, has a population of just 16 million and has been a blank spot on the mental map of much of the world. Its very obscurity provides Cohen with an empty canvas to paint an outlandish portrait of a country emerging from the Soviet yoke. For many people, Borat Sagdiyev provides everything they "know" about the country.
In typical fashion, Borat shot back at the nation's ad campaign.
"I would like to comment on recent advertisements on television and in media about my nation of Kazakhstan, saying that women are treated equally, and that all religions are tolerated - these are disgusting fabrications," Borat said in a statement posted Thursday on his Web site.
"These claims are part of a propaganda campaign against our country by evil nitwits Uzbekistan who as we all know are a very nosey people, with a bone in the middle of their brain."
Kazakhs are proud both of their nomadic ancestry and their modern achievements.
The world's first satellite and astronaut were launched from the desolate Kazakh steppe. Kazakhstan boasts double-digit economic growth and immense oil reserves. It recently led an effort to proclaim the Central Asian region a nuclear-free zone.
The ads also acknowledge some of the negative aspects of the country: It suffers from high rates of cancer apparently due to the aftereffects of decades of Soviet nuclear testing.
The government sees Nazarbayev's U.S. trip as its chance to cement Kazakhstan's place as the West's favorite partner in formerly Soviet Central Asia. The ads make no mention of Borat, but come just five weeks before the U.S. premiere of his movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan."
Borat claimed that the true aim of Nazarbayev's trip was to promote the film, and that he would be co-hosting a preview.
"This screening will be followed by cocktail party and a discussion of closer ties between our countries at Hooters," Borat said on his Web state, referring to an American restaurant chain known for scantily clad waitresses.
Of course, the country's real government is horrified at the whole thing.
In December, it banned him from using a Web site with the ".kz" domain name - a move the Reporters Without Borders group called censorship. Kazakhstan's embassies in the West have protested Cohen's character, and tried through the media to mend the damage to their image - in some cases refuting, one-by-one, each barbaric habit Borat attributes to Kazakhs.
The movie, which debuted this month at the Toronto film festival to appreciate early reviews, is due to play in U.S. cinemas in November. The Kazakh government says it isn't planning to ban the movie, but the manager of the nation's biggest movie chain said the company wouldn't screen it.
"Didn't you see what nonsense it says about Kazakhstan? All our traditions and customs are distorted. It says that we still live in yurts (felt or skin tents) and so on," Ruslan Sultanov said. "There's no point showing it. Spectators will not watch something like that."
But Paryz Baitenov, whose independent 31 TV Channel is planning to produce a report on Borat, has a more counterintuitive approach: "I don't know any more brilliant promoter of Kazakhstan than Borat."
"We need to allow people to know what some bureaucrats are being so indignant about," he said. "Of course it's not politically correct. But it's funny."