KAZAKHSTAN / PORTUGAL: Ordinary Kazakhstanis not concerned about Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat Sagdiyev's take on the country

British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen might breathe a sigh of relief when he finds out that ordinary people in Kazakhstan have no idea who he is and why the country's authorities have threatened to take legal action against him. "Kazakhstan is a civilised and very good country, you can live here and work here, without having to worry about anything," said Russian Dmitry Petrukhin, biking through Kazakhstan, a country the size of Western Europe. A small crowd gathered around Petrukhin shouted: "Kazakhstan!, Kazakhstan!", on hearing words of praise about their country. No one had heard of Cohen or Borat, the Kazakh character he portrays. "There is a TV set in almost every house here, almost. And we listen to all sorts of music, we listen to almost everything, from rock to hip hop," said a proud Ruslan Davletov on his wedding day, standing next to his bride. Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry has threatened legal action against Cohen who wins laughs by portraying the central Asian state as a country populated by drunks who enjoy cow-punching as a sport, Cohen, who portrays a spoof Kazakh television presenter Borat in his "Da Ali G Show", has won fame ridiculing Kazakhstan, the world's ninth largest country which is still little known to many in the West, on British and U.S. channels. Cohen appears to have drawn official Kazakh ire after he hosted the annual MTV Europe Music Awards show in Lisbon earlier this month as Borat, who arrived in an Air Kazakh propeller plane controlled by a one-eyed pilot clutching a vodka bottle. "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," Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev told a news briefing on November 14. "We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind." He declined to elaborate. Cohen's earlier jokes about the Central Asian state include claims that the people would shoot a dog and then have a party, and that local wine was made from fermented horse urine.

ITN Source | November 23, 2005

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