To Kazakhs.

I believe in supporting satire, free speech, and non-PC cultural criticism, but these things do hurt people sometimes. This isn't an argument for self-censorship or timidity, but for sympathetic efforts to bridge gaps when misunderstandings occur. I know I already wrote a Borat post, but a Kazakh friend of mine living in America wrote me feeling upset about the movie. This is part of my reply to her, which I would address to all Kazakhs living here. There are no new ideas from my last post, just a different tone.

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When I was in Kokshetau, a journalist wrote an article about me as an American that made me look very stupid and rude. Lots of people in Kokshetau saw it, and I felt ashamed to show my face for weeks. You have to live with the Borat posters everywhere. It's very hard to live in a foreign country and culture, when you feel like you're always being watched and judged. To be in America when your country, which you rightly feel very proud of, seems to be mocked in a popular movie must be very difficult.

But let me try to convince you of something that might sound strange at first, but which is very true: the Borat movie is not about Kazakhstan. I know, he says he's from Kazakhstan, and he waves a Kazakh flag, but that is where the similarity with the real Kazakhstan ends. The language he speaks isn't Kazah, the Cyrillic is gibberish, the people and houses don't look like Kazakhstan, and of course all the "culture" is completely made up. The -only- reason he chose "Kazakhstan" is because nobody had heard of it. I heard that he originally wanted to be from Albania, but it was thought that too many people knew where Albania was. In other words, it could be anywhere, as long as Americans haven't heard of it.

And it's true that before this movie, most Americans had never heard of Kazakhstan. I know, I had to explain to people where I was moving to. This is not something you should be ashamed of as a Kazakh, it's Americans who should be ashamed of their own ignorance.

This American ignorance is exactly what Borat is making fun of. This movie has nothing at all to do with the real Kazakhstan, but it has a lot to do with the real America. Borat's whole act is to behave like a boorish, ignorant, dirty man, and cleverly show that Americans have a lot in common with him.

For example, anti-Semitism is not a problem in Kazakhstan, but it is a problem here. So when Borat gets an Arizona bar to sing along with a song called "Throw the Jew Down the Well", who is being made fun of? Is it Kazakhstan or America? When a stadium of sports-fans nearly riots when he sings the National Anthem wrong, is it Americans or Kazakhs ashamed of hyper-nationalism? Isn't the very fact that most people know so little about Kazakhstan more the subject of Borat than anything to do with the real Kazakhstan?

I deeply believe that this is not a movie about Kazakhstan, it's a movie about America. It takes place in America, and with real Americans, not actors. It is American culture that he probes, not Kazakhstan's. The "Kazakhstan" of Borat is a fiction designed to probe America's flaws.

I think most Americans understand this. Everyone I talk to, everything I read, shows that people know that Borat does not represent the real Kazakhstan. And if someone doesn't understand that, then it is exactly these ignorant people that Borat is poking fun at. So you don't need to feel ashamed. On the contrary, you should act proud to be a Kazakh, and take this chance to teach people a little about what being Kazakh really means.