Jagshemash. I’ve seen Borat twice and I’m enchanted; I’m also aware that many of you aren’t. Some of you worry that Kazakhstan is being exploited and humiliated in a huge way, since the movie is so popular. I understand, especially since the movie is depicting a country that is more fictional than real– the “village” scenes were filmed in Romania and neither Russian nor Kazakh are ever spoken (Borat speaks Hebrew mingled with a few other things to Azamat, who replies back in Armenian).
Anyway, since “Borat” isn’t about the real Kazakhstan, I thought I’d find out more about the quondam Soviet republic:
Kazakhstan is the largest and one of the wealthiest of the countries in the Central Asian region. Although it was considered a liberal society, there have been allegations of harassment of religious minorities like protestant Christians, non-state-controlled Muslims and Hindu sects.
Kazakhstan is not a signatory to the UN’s International covenant on Civil and Political Rights or to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.[link]
Well that just proves that Borat has nothing to do with the Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan– he picks on Jews and Gypsies but says nothing regarding Hindus. Meanwhile, in the land he was supposedly acquiring cultural learnings for…
The Hindu Forum of Britain alleged that 60 riot police and bulldozers assembled inside a Hindu temple in Kazakhstan and allegedly demolished five Hindu houses…[link]
When Tony Blair met with Kazakhstan’s President, Nursultan Nazarbayev in London, he rightly expressed concern about such disturbing events, which are apparently targeting ISKCON devotees and their temple. But it’s not just about a temple:
…Kazakh Hindus who applied for ownership of their houses were asked to declare that they were not Hindus, while non-Hindus who made similar applications were immediately granted ownership rights[link]
Hmmm. The government of Kazakhstan maintains that the temple was built illegally, but that doesn’t explain why the homes of Hindus are also being destroyed.
Predictably, ISKCON coordinated a protest outside Kazakhstan’s embassy:
ISKON devotees, protesting the incident, went on a rampage outside the Kazakhstan Embassy in Delhi.
While the Kazhakh authorities claim the temple was built illegally, devotees call it a religious persecution.
…10 dozen ISKON devotees were pushed out of their homes in the winter chill as authorities knocked down their houses into rubble.[link]
Now I’m going to be as ignorant as the character I find so hilarious and ask my mutineers a question: does it matter to you that this is about an ISKCON temple? Does it lessen your potential outrage? I don’t know a ton about this group, I just remember seeing them at airports and that my parents had nothing to say about them, when asked. Combine this memory with some of the comments a few of you have made about ISKCON and I think we have an explanation for my confusion. Was I wrong about your ambivalence? Enlighten me, why don’t you… 🙂
is it ‘cos I is brown?
Where’s Saheli at? She ‘splained all this stuff to me, along with how she and hers are apparently all kinds of at-home with the ISKCON folks, which I have to admit I kind of laughed at, even though it’s true.
I suppose I should have paid more attention, because this always happens. I have a relevant discussion about some kind of topic, I treat it irreverantly and do my utmost to turn it into comedy (and fail miserably), I pick up the pieces and attempt to assimilate some knowledge to assuage bruised feelings, and then a week later it’s a goddamn discussion thread on the Mutiny, and my brain has purged everything but the limp punchlines.
Kazakhstan is not a “liberal” society as the DNA article mentions, it’s a tightly controlled dictatorship fuelled by oil revenues, and has an awful human rights record. The government treats all kinds of ethnic minorities, opposition groups, civil society folks and dissidents execrably, and has committed human rights abuses as an ally in America’s “war or terrorism.” So I don’t know to what extent the crackdown on ISKCON folks was in their capacity as Hindus or because they were an autonomous group. But if the question is, should we care because these are ISCKON people, why not? It’s not really defending human rights if you only defend the rights of your “own” and make excuses for everything else (which is what the Bajrang Dal and VHP are really good at, BD is particularly ironic because they have blood on their own hands).
Kazakhstan is very rich but it is definitely NOT liberal. Its human rights record is appalling and old government ways of state terrorism, persecution of religious minorities and unfair detainment and treatment of individuals from the old days when it was part of the USSR are still part of how things work.
I’m personally am a Borat fan, and I think that Sacha Baron Cohen, aside from being a Cambridge educated lawyer who gave it all up to hold his crotch in yellow G pants for a living (fellow law scholars gotta respec’ that…) has done a really good thing by turning the world’s attention to this ‘Muslim-sounding-but-they-look-white’ country, or more importantly, their government.
Kazakhstan: not nice now. Make good later? Borat (and I) hope it shall be so.
Hmmm. I haven’t seen Borat so I can’t comment on how it affects the image of Kazhakstan. On first glance it seems like the glorious Kazhakh nation is being stereotyped by a disco-dancing, mysoginist, anti-semite reporter. But then people who have seen the film say americans are depicted as dumb hicks. Is it true that there are lawsuits brought against the film? Hope it releases in India soon.
Kazakhstan has 17% of the world’s known Uranium deposits. I am not surprised it is a dictatorship.
BORAT will be released in India uncensored!
NOTTTT!!!
Now IÂ’m going to be as ignorant as the character I find so hilarious and ask my mutineers a question: does it matter to you that this is about an ISKCON temple? Does it lessen your potential outrage?
Thank you for this story Anna. No, I consider anyone who self-identifies as a Hindu a Hindu. I know that born Hindus, including several in my family, consider ISKCON a cult, but I write that off to the innate prejudice all Indians seem to have against mlechhas, and the inability to conceive of conversions to Hinduism, which is a longstanding conssequence of cultural and political defeat within India.
I am impressed that the Hindu lobby in Great Britain has enough leverage to get the Prime Minister to act at the state level. I doubt Indian Hindus could pull that off with the current regime.
He may be overstaying his welcome…
Very well said. The current regime has no concern for Indian Hindus forget about Kazak Hindus and Iskcon. They should officially declare Indian as Islamic Republic of India and what is left to be done now if final persecution of Hindus from the very land of sacred vedas. Long back, persian civilization has been swollowed, Afghanistan, Pakistan where Buddhism thrived as been reduced to the present sorry state. Banladesh has already killed millions of Hindus. Kashmir is on the way out. What next? Assam, Kerala, Andhra….slowly …rest of India. the remanants of ancient Indian civilization will slowly be swollowed by the global cult
Allah Hu akbar
Just as I won’t stand by and allow Hinduism, Sikhism or Christianity to be defamed, I have to step in and ask you to be more respectful. Even if you are passionate about your position, there’s a better way to convey that to all of us.
Ppl of every religion should have the right to practice their faith in the way they see fit without being discriminated against. That is the view of “secular” countries. What’s the point in talking about religious freedom in a country that doesn’t even want to think of itself along the secular lines. And what right do we have as outsiders to demand religious freedom?(Think hindu loby and Tony blair). I’m sure Kazakhs figure out the importance, advantages and ethics behind secularism by themselves. Lets give them time… afterall lets now forget that they came out of a communist russian control where secularism and other democratic views were not welcome.
But then people who have seen the film say americans are depicted as dumb hicks
Not all of them. As Christopher Hitchens wrote, the majority of them appear painfully polite. Frankly, the teenage drunk frat boys are like a lot of teenage drunk frat boys you could find in most countries. I loved the Southern hostess. She was so “propah”. 🙂
Speaking of Kazakhstan and religion… Other official summaries say there are 40 religious groups in Kazakhstan. I dont know what most are. But I do know that there seems to be a groundswell of interest amongst peoples and leaders in the Zoroastrian religion, as part of their cultural heritage. Part of it is about a nation in a post-Soviet identity crisis; part of it is a sincere interest in the fact that that whole area of the world was once Zoroastrian. In 2002, the government of Kazakhstan apparently seconded, or supported their neighbor Tajikstan’s request to UNESCO to sanction 2003 as a non-historically-exact “3000th Anniversary of Zoroastrian Culture.” (The anniversary took off and was celebrated in many countries, including Iran, India, and the US– to the extent that UNESCO was forced to comment publically positively on it). All this is to say that there are different surges of interest and concern among citizenry and government there, searching for identity, and no real cohesiveness. But its interesting to observe these trends.
“‘Muslim-sounding-but-they-look-white’ country”
Um… no. Whoever said that has not bothered to learn anything about Kazakhstan and its history.
Check out visual images of Kazakhs. (BTW Kazakh areas are also found in the Xinjiang Central Asian autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China). As Central Asian nations once lay right on the Silk Road as the crossroads of civilizations and trade, like many other Central Asian ethnic groups, their populations have shifted and transformed genetically and geneologically, and there are many different kinds of Kazakhs. While its not appropriate to make generalized judgements, it would be safe to say that a large number of Kazakhs look very “Central Asian” — what you may consider looking “East Asian-ish” or “Mongolian-ish”. Put very bluntly, it means many Kazakhs have, among other differing features, epicanthic eye folds. That’s not meant to be a blanket statement, but most Kazakhs would consider the president of Kazakhstan to look “ethnically Kazakh.”
It is NOT a nation of “white looking people” by any stretch of the imagination.
Gypsies are Indians, up in arms everyone!
Gazsi
For make fabulous Kazakhstan from the NYTimes http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/23/fashion/23ROW.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
ANNA for the fashion goddess in you Almaty is a designer mecca.
http://www.afw.kz/english/index.htm
the former soviet union has been really rich pickings for hindu missionary groups. i was shocked when i was reading the world christian database archives and noted that the russian federation has one of the highest absolute numbers of hindus in the world indonesia or sri lanka. the decline of the main religions during communism opened up an opportunity for all of other groups when communism fell.
Ms Anna,
It’s all very well to be “enchanted” by this insidious prankster with his droll mustache. But the problem with this form of racially-charged humour is that it is alienating .
My question is this: does the movie put us in touch with our own racism, or does it simply get us to laugh at those silly rednecks and bigots who are (as depicted) so, so unlike us? Sadly, Cohen mainly goes for the latter approach. This kind of racist humour is alienating. It makes us feel separated from the “other”, in this case American southerners, among others.
An acid test, as I have said before here, is the following: replace the real-life Cohen with a real-life moslem, and racist southerners with Zionists, and quips about “throwing jews in the well” with “bombing Lebanese villages”. Is this still funny?
I believe that Cohen cleverly makes of the Milgram technique which can probably get people to go along with almost anything if it appears to come with an authority figure. If you can get people to deliver lethal electric shocks to “experimental subjjects”, why not get them to sing racist ditties? What we are seeing here, I believe, is less evidence of anti-semitism, but rather, proof that polite, sheltered southerners can be duped by an insidious, clever prankster.
What we are > seeing here, of course, is the number of times Cohen had failed to pull this off in similar venues.
I think this movie is clever and funny, but insidious and in the long run harmful to race relations.
i blame bollywood. it’s cultural imperialism
Haven’t seen Borat yet-but i saw a glimpse on SNL last night (and few more TV programs before). Borat gets the accent near right, i say so because i always am reminded of my Russian pal’s accent. But below the belt humor, if there is any-IMHO. I know he’s not real, i also know that it doesn’t represent the real Kazakhastan (i ahbe no real idea of what that country is actually like)-but what i saw on SNL, the language like ” you can use my sister”, “she’s girl so she has no name”- left me in a state of near disgust…..my tolerance may be low-may be its just me…..but i won’t watch Borat.
You beat me to it 🙂 I was going to say the same thing that this past week was the Kazak Fashion Week for 2006. It’s not huge but the models are gorgeous, not waify & brunettes 🙂 The participation is some European designers and mostly Eastern European designers and the designs aren’t what one would expect “conservative” but it’s definitely not your Armani or Gucci.
Wow, that was your first post with 1 big word for every 3 word!
Chris P said: “Wow, that was your first post with 1 big word for every 3 word!”
What is your problem? Whatever it is, take it elsewhere.
You mean, a post-communisty kleptocracy.
What does it feel like finally becoming literate? Being able to tell apart “big words”, no mean feat. Long ways to go before you become wise though.
You seem to be familiar with the other posts to know the difference. She’s fabulous isn’t she? Can’t keep away yet can’t really hide the real ass that you are either. WTF.
Chris P: JoanOfAllTrades raises an excellent point. I am thankful that you pay such close attention to my posts, that you notice such details. 😉
Shireen- 😀
JoAT, thank you.
What makes you think someone from KAZAKHSTAN would have an accent anything similar to what someone from RUSSIA would have?
There have been previous threads on Sepia Mutiny regarding the relationship between ISKCON and Hinduism, so I won’t rehash all that, you can look that up in the archives, for example on here.
But then there’s the question of whether readers here should not get too worked up because it’s ISKCON rather than “normal” Hindus. This implies that readers might or should care more about ISKCON than some other religious group potentially being persecuted by the Kazhak government, one that most readers don’t share, say Jehovah Witnesses. Of course, this site has been pretty upset about Muslims (or mistaken-for-Muslims) being harrased by the US government in various ways. Is this only because of shared skin color and regional family origin, if not religious affiliation, with the victims of such harrassment, than on any principled objection to race or religious-based discrimination by one’s government?
Perhaps one could ask, should Sepia readers care more about devotees of Krishna (who are white) being evicted from their property in Kazakhstan (a far away country of which probably no readers are citizens, which is a dictatorship, but might just be vulnerable to outside pressure) than Muslims (not Hindus, but brown) in America (of which many of us are citizens or permanent residents, but do and have some limited say in our gov’t) being harrassed by TSA or the FBI?
Since women are among those being evicted in Kazhakstan, if you are a woman, should you now care even more?
Aah, the riddles of identity politics… The easy answer, of course, is injustice is injustice, no matter the perpetrator or the victims and an observer’s relationship to either. But I guess that’s fairly glib and easy to say, especially when there are just so many injustices to worry about.
If anyone is interested,here’s some links (to ISKCON-related websites) describing what happened starting this last April, here and here. The final eviction notice just came in so the demolition started recently.
Excellent! Now that you guys noticed…let me bring up a topic that Indians should address…here goes
My problem is that a bunch of Indians (quiet like yourselves) have been masquerading( big word 😉 ) as elitist and knowingly or worse unknowingly think that rest of India is like that. The reality is that, apart from 0.00001% of the population, most everybody is a social misfit! Don’t make me list. The reason why I’m complaining is that may Americans see you guys expect a different India…get completely flabergasted at the real situation…come back and complain to me!
Uh… Janeofalltrades
I read all the posts with the same degree of interest! Mata-fact…I don’t really care who the blogger is… Think of me as a silent mediator of the ‘The Great Indian Blogging’ that’s going on.
And yeah…remarks like this would be better, coming from the horse’s mouth not from the other end.
Borat benefited everyone (while exploiting them). Some in the movie were made to believe this was to be a small budget movie, the nation of Kazakhstan got 15 minutes of fame and the investors got their money back doing the laundry.
BleedingDil, you make an excellent point about Borat. I’ve been wondering what’s been unsettling me as I hear comments and read reviews that claim the movie exposes our latent prejudices and shatters the walls of our comfort zones. You are right: It is alienating and pits many of us against the “other.” I’d like to add that it’s alienating in another sense (which you may have also implied in your post): Through the character of Borat, Baron Cohen embodies and encapsulates outrageous, unacceptable behavior and thus he becomes a chamber pot for embarrassing psychology–an external dumping ground safely removed from us–so that we laugh at it (him) without internalizing the need to change ourselves. Laughter feels good–but in this instance, what has it taught us? I am also curious to know.
(@31)
Crispy- If we were “quiet”, you wouldn’t have a lot to moderate. And that’s not even a big word.
Considering this isn’t your blog and you’ve done very little to prove you have any skill to be moderating anything (with 1 big word for every 3
wordWORDS) I say you find yourself a new hobby and perhaps learn some new manners while you are at it. Because even Einstein did not have the liberty to be a dick.moderatingmediatingAll religious discrimination deserves the exact same reaction (each to his/her own to choose what the reaction is). Otherwise aren’t we accepting that we have different standards for different people/races/countries/religions? That would be hypocrisy.
**the former soviet union has been really rich pickings for hindu missionary groups. **
technically, hindus don’t have “missionary” groups! it goes against the religion.
on a tangent, a good majority of Shri Aurobindo’s followers (apart from India of course) come from Russia.
I really wanted to reply to this in my own words, but I think what you need is some Borat-speak since it obviously mirrors the way you type:
You are social misfit! Don’t make me start. Reason I am complaining is that you seem to be only one stereotyping others.
Seriously though, I have never experienced or heard of anyone experiencing the situation you described above. What are you on about? And if you don’t want to be associated with the 99.9999999% of the Indian population that you look down on, learn to spell, work on your grammar, and change your attitude 🙂
A N N A, I’m afraid I’ll have to side with Bleeding Dil:
on this one. I earnestly feel that Kazakhstan is being exploited and humiliated in a huge way (to use your words). Anti-Semitism is an exceptionally visceral form of hate; a form of hate that was systematically nurtured in certain societies over two millenia. Very few societies east of the river Jordan are anti-Semitic in the sense that is encoded by those two words. Even the political anti-Semitism of the Middle-East – which bears no kinship with the bigotry that sent 6 million Jews to their deaths in Europe – cannot be said to be detectable in the “genetic makeup” of ex-Soviet Central-Asian societies. Thus, it’s intellectually dishonest for Sascha Cohen to characterise a nation – one that’s not competent to lobby against such a slur – as being anti-Semitic.
Is there bigotry in Kazakhstan. Oh sure (most 20th-century societies began the century being bigoted in some form or the other; it’s the commitment to social-liberalism that transformed some of them) !! Are there Jew-haters in Kazakhstan ? Again, yes. But I’d recommend folks to read up on the resettlement of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in Kazakhstan to comprehend that problem. If Cohen wanted to pick a naively un-PC, funny-sounding, but white, anti-Semitic demographic, he would have shown greater intellectual courage in playing a Pole or a Ukrainian. And – dear readers – please don’t write to me saying that Cohen would have to be quixotic to play a Pole or a Ukrainian! For the winner in the intellectual-courage stakes, I refer you to Philip Roth. One needs to read “Portnoy’s Complaint” — and all of Roth’s observations about “hairy [expletive] Pollacks” therein — to realise how much growing-up Sascha Cohen has yet to do!
SM Intern,
Prasad’s statements were perfectly respectful and just because you disagree with his views doesn’t give you the right to go around accusing him of moral inferiority. If anything, your eagerness to berate him reeked more of disrepect.
I deleted his next comment almost immediately, so unless you ARE Prasad, I’m impressed that you had time to read it and render your inaccurate opinion. All I said was that we would delete similar statements made against Hinduism or Sikhism, so to maintain fairness, if someone calls Islam a “cult” and then makes other intolerant or anti-secular comments, we have to delete THOSE comments as well.
This policy has been clearly spelled out in the paragraph above the comments box and we’re not going to deviate from it. We don’t delete if we disagree with you (how could we? We disagree with each other), we delete for clear violations. You are wrong; I hardly berated him and I did not accuse Prasad of any type of inferiority. I specifically asked him to try and make his point in a way that didn’t break our rules, because I didn’t want to ban him.
Just because you disagree with me, doesn’t give YOU the right to accuse me of what I absolutely did not do.
WOW that’s the most SM Intern has ever said!! 🙂
^^ I will clean considerable amounts of flung poo, I will work cheerfully on holidays, I will tolerate ritual intern abuse…but I will NOT stand by and let someone accuse me of poo I didn’t do. That is all.
And no one can poo poo at that! You tell em!!
ANYHOO
Bleh. I fail to see what’s so funny about Borat. Not because of the “offensive” nature of the material, but because Sasha does a particularly horrific job of capturing the Kazakhi accent and mannerisms. Its hard to laugh when the essence of the character is inaccurate.
SM Intern,
You quoted “the remanants of ancient Indian civilization will slowly be swollowed by the global cult” in your response, which was taken from Post#10 I wasn’t aware that Prasad made any other posts. Based on post#10, I don’t find anything he said offensive, other than misspellings.
Potentially, yes. Why not?
The Borat movie wasn’t as funny as the show, where he succeeded in showcasing the stupidity and racism of a lot of people; in the movie, you sometimes feel sympathetic for people in it. However, the movie is still funny.
I hope I would be upset about anyone’s house being destroyed because of their religious beliefs, regardless of whether the were “real” Hindus, ISCKON Hindus, or Moonies.
Mr. Tash…or is it Trash!
Here is a link…to clear things up (you might want watch it…uh…about a 100 times…since you seem to forget how shitty things are!) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2063667852598904740&q=India&hl=en
BTW, my whole point is that we are human…in making mistakes. The idea is to accept the faults and fix them. Instead of say, telling people how great things were 2000 years ago…and day dreming….oh look I screwed up again…dreaming.
Love Chris