Most people in Kazakhstan appear rather disgusted with Borat’s jokes. As one World Bank representative comments, “Kazakhstan is a Muslim country, there should be boundaries especially towards women. An assault against a native woman is an assault against the entire nation.”

Compared to its neighbors, Kazakhstan stands out with its economic potential and relative political openness. But Baron Cohen’s picking on Kazakhstan turned into a source for other Central Asian states to mock the country. Borat is actively discussed on Central Asian internet forums, mostly in an offensive tone against Kazakhs.

During Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev’s visit to the U.S. on September 26-29, Baron Cohen used the opportunity to promote his new movie on Borat’s adventures. Playing Borat, he appeared in front of the Kazakh embassy in Washington, D.C., only an hour after Nazarbayev’s visit. Borat was entirely ignored by the embassy’s officials, but attracted a wide range or journalists and reporters.

Borat also showed up in front of the White Hose on September 29, inviting U.S. President George W. Bush to take part in his movies. Borat’s image appeared in numerous U.S. news and entertainment outlets, such as CNN, USA Today, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, etc., arguably more often than news about Nazarbayev’s actual visit.

Kazakhstan’s repugnance to Baron Cohen’s comedies is understandable. Similar to other Soviet successor states, Kazakhstan is struggling to build its own image as an independent and sovereign state with a legitimate government.

Nazarbayev’s daughter and media magnate, Dariga Nazarbayeva, was among the first public figures to call for accepting Borat’s character with a sense of humor. However, the Kazakh public’s disgust seems to outweigh this, and Borat’s official website on a Kazakhstani domain was blocked by local officials. Meanwhile, several other websites and forums expressing hatred against the comedian were created.

Kazakh students studying abroad more than anyone else express concern with Baron Cohen’s new movie, to be presented this November. Many call him a “pseudo-Kazakh”, whose indentations include to degrade the image of oil-rich Kazakhstan in the West. One Kazakh student complains that “Today, Borat is the most known ‘Kazakh’, who hijacks Kazakhstan’s efforts to enhance its international reputation.”

Previously, Kazakh top government officials and diplomats have expressed their concern with Sasha Cohen’s comedies, yet this had little impact on Borat’s international popularity. As one news source put it, “They [the Kazakh Government] are damned if they do [respond] and damned if they don’t.”

One scholar suggested that the only way for Kazakh officials to react to Borat is to embrace his image. After all, “Borat is not against all Kazaks, but is reflective of any post-Soviet person’s adventures in the West… Kazakhstan was unlucky to be chosen among all”. Indeed, Baron Cohen constructed Borat’s image after meeting a real person in southern Russia in 1995.

Those who enjoy Borat’s jokes do not necessarily think Kazakhstan’s international image is at risk. As one American graduate student thinks, in fact Borat shames his respondents, mostly Westerners, who have little knowledge about other parts of the world and are easily fooled by the comedian.

Baron Cohen’s other two popular characters, an urban English appropriating rap culture, Aly G, and Austrian homosexual Bruno, follow a somewhat similar logic of acting methods. All three characters provoke their respondents by pushing the limits of irrelevance, while also sporadically bringing in somewhat meaningful issues.

Weeks before Nazarbayev’s visit to the U.S. and Baron Cohen’s release of a new movie about Borat, the Kazakh government launched an international PR campaign to enhance Kazakhstan’s image. The campaign was channeled through CNN and The New York Times, appraising democratic developments, economic potential, and cultural issues.

In spite of Kazakhstan’s nervousness about Baron Cohen’s creativity, Nazarbayev’s recent visit to the U.S. was undeniably successful, while Kazakhstan’s energy resources still represent the Central Asian region’s hope for future economic development.