Posted on 11/21/2006 5:26:02 AM PST by MadIvan
Downing Street has refused to say if Tony Blair has seen controversial comedy film Borat, as he meets the Kazhakstan president at Number 10.
The prime minister's official spokesman said: "I don't do book reviews and I don't do film reviews."
Mr Blair is currently meeting President Nursultan Abish-uly Nazarbayev.
Kazakhstan's ambassador to the UK has said Borat, which stars British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, "grossly misrepresented" his country.
The film, whose full title is Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, depicts Kazakhstan as a racist, sexist, violent, primitive and oppressive country.
It features a spoof Kazhak TV reporter supposedly employed by the country's government to make a documentary on America.
The film has topped the box office charts in the UK and US.
But it has provoked outrage in other countries and has been banned in Russia after officials said it could offend some ethnic groups.
'Close relationship'
Kazakhstan's ambassador to the UK, Erlan Idrissov, has criticised its portrayal of his country as bearing no resemblance to the reality of an "increasingly modern, prosperous, secular state".
Downing Street has refused to be drawn into the row.
A spokesman said the UK had a "very close relationship" with Kazakhstan and was its third biggest foreign investor.
He also praised the country's support for the war in Iraq, adding that it had troops present on the ground there.
Kazakhstan is widely regarded as key to securing Britain's future energy supplies.
'Economic powerhouse'
President Nazarbayev is also due to meet Chancellor Gordon Brown, as well as having an audience with the Queen during his three day visit.
Mr Nazarbayev is seeking international support for his efforts to turn the oil-rich former Soviet republic into the "economic powerhouse of central Asia".
British Gas and Shell have stakes in giant oil fields in Kazakhstan, and Europe is urging the administration in Astana to export oil and gas via pipelines built by a group led by BP across the Caucasus to Turkey.
The new pipeline would reduce Kazakhstan's reliance on routes across Russian territory and ensure that a proportion of the country's energy supplies flows west to Europe, rather than east to China.
A former First Secretary of the Kazakh Communist Party, Mr Nazarbayev took office in 1990, while Kazakhstan was still part of the Soviet Union.
He was elected President of independent Kazakhstan in 1990, then re-elected in 1999 and 2005.
On Wednesday, he will open trading at the London Stock Exchange, which has seen the listing of Kazakhstan's biggest copper, gold and oil producers over the past year.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
That describes 100% of Third World countries. I doubt Borat's depiction of his home village is too far from the truth. ;)
Note to the Kazakhs: I think it has something to do with living in the steppes. We in Kansas get the same sort of stupid treatment from the 'sophisticated' people on the East and West Coasts of the US that 'Borat' subjects your country to.
To carry the analogy still further is easy. The filming of Kazakhstan was carried out in ROMANIA. The reason given was that the film makers could not easily find such a dilapidated community in Kazakhstan.
They chose Glodt, I believe it is called. Romania has about 70% Roman Catholic faith, ie: a predominantly Christian country.
My guess as to why it was not filmed in Kazahhstan- a guess to be sure. They just may have had a large quantity of manure beaten out of them.
The supporters of his humour just should have THEIR relatives thus spoofed. They could watch others die laughing.
I think it is unfortunate that the writers chose to use the name of a real country. You could use Kazookastan and get away with it in the States. And you wouldn't offend a nation which is, after all, an ally in the War on Terror.
I think the Romanians would be upset at being called 70% 'Roman Catholic'.
Only 5.6% of Romanians are Latins (as the majority 86.7% Romanian Orthodox, and I, would call them--we regard the Holy Orthodox Church as the 'one catholic and apostolic Church' spoken of in the Creed-- and I think some Romanians are even harsher than I, and would call them 'papists'). (Or are you, perhaps making the assertion that there is a 70% agreement on matters of faith between us Orthodox and the Latins? Which, I suppose is fair enough, though I think it hard to quantify.)
Romania is, actually, over 97% Christian, those not mentioned above being various types of protestants.
I should have described the majority of religious beliefs as being Romanian Orthodox. Only six percent are said to be Roman Catholic.
I am afraid that being Protestant does render me quite uninformed. Not much of an excuse of course. I shall have to study a little more.
In my haste over "Borat", I saw posters on FR asserting that "it served the Muslims right," in being mocked by this wretched man ,Sascha Cohen. They thought the people filmed were Muslims. Some even thought they were Arabic people. I wanted to point out that, Romania is predominantly Christian.
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