Cohen's Borat is really ticking off Kazakh officials

By April MacIntyre Oct 6, 2006, 4:56 GMT

Cast member Sacha Baron Cohen poses at the premiere of \'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan\' - REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

In the recent ad campaign aired by the tourism board of Kazakhstan, the ending tag line is "Kazakhstan, ever wondered?"... the accent of the narrator makes it plausible that he is saying, ever wondered where it is, what it looks like, could the food be any good.  Many questions left still to ponder.

What is not left to the imagination is the roil "Borat" creator Sacha Baron Cohen is causing the tiny, eurasian country.  Cohen has been branded a "racist, chauvinistic pig" by the Kazakh ambassador to Britain prior to the release of his new film.

Borat is number one public enemy in Kazakhstan due to his new film:  Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan.

Cohen depicts the country as a slavic hillbilly mish mosh of dirty misogynists, racists and anti-Semites, and I hear there is drinking of fermented horse urine too.  Perhaps all these unflattering generalizations tipped the scale for the Kazakhs, who seemed perfectly happy until this "Borat" creation sprung from Cambridge educated Sacha Baron Cohen's fertile mind.

Ambassador Erlan Idrissov claims Borat, a fictional, satirical character, is heaping shame on his nation because they are an "easy target." 

He says, "Borat's most striking features are his rudeness, ignorance, racism and chauvinism. He is a pig of a man: stupid, belligerent and charmless. In one show he asks a dating service for a girl with 'plough experience'."

Roman Vassilenko, the press secretary for the Embassy of Kazakhstan, was asked by a New Yorker reporter to explain some real Kazakhstan travel guide entries that mention a Kazakh sport called kokpar, a precursor of polo.

The New Yorker reported: "When Vassilenko was asked about it, he hesitated, then explained, 'That’s the one where a goat, a dead goat—a headless dead goat—is, um, being held as a sort of a prize. And then one rider has it, and he has to run away with it from others who seek to catch it and snatch it from him.' And then they have a party."