Borat first came to my attention when a Kazakh friend of mine was asked, very apologetically, if she had heard of him. She hadn’t and the guy sent her an article from the New Yorker from the Kazakh Embassy in Washington. My reaction then was probably typical of most Americans: What’s the big deal? This guy is yet another in a long line of shock-comics. I’ve never found this sort of thing funny but it was obvious he had no connection to Kazakhstan and it wasn’t clear where the harm was. I was slightly amused by the fact that Vassilenko, the Embassy spokesperson was reluctant to admit that one of the traditional sports of Kazakhstan, kokpar, involves using a headless goat or sheep carcass as a ball. It has been noted that Kazakhstan as a nation wants desperately to be taken seriously, however trying to disown genuine traditions is not necessarily the best path to that. There is no shame in Janybek never having closed negotiations for a joint venture with Adidas in the 16th century.

Borat returned to my attention after I had spent a year in Kazakhstan, and was at a housewarming party. Two guys started asking me if I had heard of Borat and if what he said was true. I told them it wasn’t in any way based on truth but they insisted that he wouldn’t have named Kazakhstan and just made everything up. I explained that the joke apparently was on ignorant Westerners willing to believe that other nations are primitive. One of them pointed out that the USSR was known to be anti-Semitic (this was after this Borat stunt) and Kazakhstan probably was too. I pointed out that half the world had a history of anti-Semitism. They pressed—granted we were at a party and drinking and all that. I began to get annoyed, especially when they pressed on the question of women and how Borat’s “traditional” costumes were very revealing and how could it then be that traditional Kazakh dress is very modest? Surely, Kazakh women were sluts. I was furious when one of them revealed that he was Ukrainian, born in the USSR. He asked me about the Russian of Kazakhs. I didn’t understand and he switched to Russian:

“I’m saying that I think they speak Russian differently in Kazakhstan, incorrectly, and you probably don’t understand what I am saying right now.”
“I understand perfectly. Of course it’s the same Russian,” I answered.

The idea that a guy from the Ukraine was calling all Kazakhs uneducated, slutty, and primitive got my goatHa ha ha a bit. I began to see the harm in Borat, not necessarily as starting these sorts of stereotypes because human nature is what it is and we like to stereotype, but as adding to it, giving people more material.

Borat has now returned to national attention as host of the MTV Europe Music Awards. In the course of the events, he brought out the “President of Kazakhstan,” and referred to him by the name of the actual President, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Apparently as the “President’ was giving a speech, Borat told people it was forbidden to speak while the President was speaking. Other offences included the president not looking Kazakh—in fact Borat’s whole entourage and style is much more Arabian/Persian than Kazakh. This created an outrage in a nation where it is against the law to dishonor or discredit the President and where generally authority figures and most especially the first President are held in greater reverence than most Westerners would be comfortable with. There are at least two places in the country where a gold cast of the President’s hand is preserved and people come and put their hand in the handprint and get their photo taken. Quotations of his adorn many other monuments and public art. Nonetheless we should note that there are hardly photos of the President’s face everywhere (except right now, because of the upcoming election), no one swears allegiance to the cult of the emperor, and the nation is devoid of other bits of silliness we see in far more authoritarian states.

I do understand the outrage, though calls to bring Borat to the international court are a bit extreme—can you imagine dragging to court everyone who ever forwarded an email with funny pictures of Bush or the guys who make the Bushism books? And Kazakhs themselves have no problems making fun of Bush—pointing out his resemblance to a monkey, criticizing harshly his politics, and always favorably comparing their own President. There is a whiff of “you can give it out, but you can’t take it” in the air.

An anecdotal survey of blogs by Kazakhs suggests that most active users are young-given the amount of slang used-and heavily into music, dance clubs, and the latest fads. Differentiating them from their American counterparts not at all. The mobilization—granted in the tens of people it would seem, not the hundreds—to the defense of their nation and their President is atypical of American teens. Conservative blogs abound with defenses of Bush against liberals and Democrats, but not so much against foreign attacks on his character or public portrayal. Yet in a short time we have this article attacking MTV, and somewhat gratuitously citing America as the source of evil, since presumably the MTV Europe branch has some autonom;, this new community which is allegedly a fan site, but on the creators’ own journal the words Borat Sucks Cock are fairly noticeable even to the non-Russian speaker.

Meanwhile a statement from the officials courtesy of RFE/FL< a href="http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/11/bc8819f5-9eee-4220-b2e2-3e6ad0dcb131.html">claims that Baron Sascha Cohen is mentally ill and many of my colleagues have cited the fact that he changes his name so often—Ali G, Borat—as a sign that he is 1) not to be trusted and 2) ashamed that he is Jewish which in and of itself means that he is 2a) a traitor to his own people and 2b) hiding something. The fact that he is a performer with characters appears to have been missed. I have no desire to watch Borat, I don’t think he’s particularly funny and I do believe he does damage to the nation in the world that perhaps is most harmed by these sorts of attacks. The Kazakh pride is immeasurable (and rightly so for everyone should have some pride for their identity and nation) and these sorts of misrepresentations seem almost custom-made to pierce that pride at its most vulnerable points. However it is sad that the most reasonable answers seem to have come from kids on a blog somewhere: Ignore him or write an angry letter. And defend your pride in the face of slightly drunk Ukrainians at cocktail parties!

EDIT: This rather concise letter from a Jewish man in Kazakhstan also smacks of reason and an awesome little graphic showing Kazakh fluency in the minutia of American culture.