In Borat's Kazakhstan, amputees stroll the streets with floppy fist-shaped dildos instead of hands and gays must all wear blue hats – but the US government says Borat himself is a victim of Kazakhstan's human rights violations, even though he isn't real.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has just released the State Department's human rights report. In it, Kazakhstan gets thumped pretty heavily for possible government-instigated murders and human trafficking and the like, but what really irked Rice was the way that the Kazakhstan government banned Borat from using a Kazakh-registered website a couple of years ago. As well as standing up for Borat in the human rights report, Condoleezza Rice also vowed to invade Narnia for keeping it winter but never Christmas and made several mentions of an episode of The Twilight Zone she saw once where there was a camera that could take pictures of five minutes into the future, because "that was probably a bit human rightsy too."
It's been a while since Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan has been in cinemas, so it's easy to forget all the kerfuffle that Borat caused back then. When the movie was released it was cited as the reason why Pamela Anderson and Kid Rock split up, it caused some Romanian villagers to shake their dildo-fists in anger and it literally made some people so angry that they punched Borat in the face.
But nowhere was Borat less welcome than in Kazakhstan, the country where he is purportedly from. The Kazakhstan government did all it could to suppress Borat – it cried to George Bush about Borat, it tried to sue Borat and then finally it just invited Borat to Kazakhstan anyway. Somewhere in this big Borat Vs Kazakhstan melee, though, the Kazakhstan government kicked Borat off the internet by removing his Kazakh-registered website. And boy, was Condoleezza Rice ever pissed off about that. That meant she had to update her bookmarks and everything.
Oh, and also Condoleezza Rice said it was a basic human rights violation to suppress free speech and so she wrote all about it in her annual human rights report, as MSNBC reports:
The fictional Kazakh TV reporter played by Sacha Baron Cohen makes an unexpected cameo as a victim in a heavyweight annual human rights report. The 2006 report, released Tuesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, criticized the real Kazakhstan, a vast oil-producing Central Asian state, for increased restrictions on freedom of speech and other abuses, including torture by police and arbitrary arrest. The report cited Borat’s loss of his Kazakh Web page www.borat.kz in late 2005 alongside court cases and limits on free speech faced by the few domestic media critical of Kazakhstan’s long-serving president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. “The government deemed as offensive the content of a satirical site controlled by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and revoked the .kz domain,” the report said.
Never mind all that, though – we actually think that Borat is guilty of a few human rights infringements himself, like the way we haven't been able to go into a pub for the last three months without hearing a group of braying arseholes bellowing "Sexytime! I Like! High-Five!" to each other like the self-satisfied bunch of pricks they undoubtedly are. But where's the report on that, huh Condoleezza?
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Eatin says
Americans. Cuh.
Jonny the Monkey says
Jagshemash!
I am Jonny the Monkey, good friend Borat and #1 celebrity in all Kazakhstan – Borat still #4 celebrity even though movie great success…
Jonny must say – actually LIKE that Condalisa Rise’s report for make Humans Right Abuse did mention Borat website taken away from that dirty Sanchez Barren Cohen man! He employ Borat for televisions reporter on Ali G show and keep all moneys. Even accept award for Borat at Goldens Globe Award show!!
Dirty Cohen definitely make Human Rights abuses against Borat, and if Jonny the Monkey see him in street… will throw poop at him fresh from anoos!
Chenquieh!
* NOTE: this comment was ‘hand signed’ by Jonny the Monkey to his gypsy assistant Batyr, who then translated those words into English and transcribed them here.
Chris Merriman says
Jonny, it has been a long time since we’ve heard from you… Come visit Kazakhstan people, it isn’t too bad a place really.
If that isn’t going to happen, at least visit a blog based on the country, written by a Brit now living there. Check the Kazakhstan 101 link for a little background info on the country itself.