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| Baron-Cohen provokes Kazakhstan Anger
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Sacha Baron-Cohen as 'Borat'
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The Kazakhstani foreign ministry has threatened legal action against British Jewish comedian Sacha Baron-Cohen over his “derogatory” portrayal of a news reporter from the Eastern European country.
Baron-Cohen, who is best known for his character Ali G, has angered the country’s government with skits where he dresses up as ‘Borat’, a journalist from Kazhakstan, and creates the impression that he comes from a backward country.
 We do not rule out that Mr Cohen is serving someone’s political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way
Yerzhan Ashykbayev, Kazakh official | When the comedian presented the MTV Europe music awards earlier this month, broadcast to a worldwide audience, he arrived in the guise of Borat in an “Air Kazakh” propeller plane piloted by a one-eyed man holding a bottle of vodka.
He told the audience in Lisbon: “My 13-year-old son is travelling here by foot, with his two wives and his three children. If he survives the journey I have promised him that he can make penetration with Colombian prostitute Shakira,” in reference to the popular South American singer who was performing on the night.
Conspiracy theory
The Kazakhstan authorities have previously made clear their discontent with the Borat character, which is featured in Baron-Cohen’s Ali G show currently popular in the US as well as in Britain.
But for the first time, a foreign ministry official this week warned that the London-based comic may have gone too far, and even spoke of the possibility of a political conspiracy.
My 13-year-old son is travelling here by foot, with his two wives and his three children. If he survives the journey I have promised him that he can make penetration with Colombian prostitute Shakirat
Sacha Baron-Cohen | “We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind,” Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev said.
“We do not rule out that Mr Cohen is serving someone’s political order designed to present Kazakhstan and its people in a derogatory way.”
Commenting on the recent TV broadcast, Ashykbayev added: “We view Mr. Cohen’s behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with ethics and civilized behaviour.”
Rare anti-Semitism
The Republic of Kazakhstan became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, has a population of just over 15 million people and a relatively strong economy based on its oil reserves.
It’s not quite helpful to portray a country where ’Throw the Jew Down the Well’ is a famous folk song
Yerzhan Ashykbayev, Kazakh official | However, in various sketches, Baron-Cohen’s character Borat has portrayed the country as being full of uneducated peasants whose pastimes include goat punching, anti-Semitism and drinking horse urine
In one episode of the Ali G show, shown on American cable channel HBO in January this year, Borat was seen leading a group of people at an Arizona bar in “Throw the Jew down the well”, which he claimed was a popular song in Kazakhstan.
At the time a Kazakhstan embassy spokesman released a statement saying: “It’s not quite helpful to portray a country where ’Throw the Jew Down the Well’ is a famous folk song.”
Anti-Semitism is not believed to be rife in Kazakhstan although there have been reports of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel articles in local newspapers.
Despite this, a recent American report into anti-Semitism stated that it was not a problem in the country and the Kazakhstani chief rabbi Yeshaya E. Cohen last year made a speech where he stated he had never been subjected to anti-Semitic abuse in the ten years he had lived in the country.
Around 5,000 Jews are living today in Kazakhstan.
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