Daphne Wong
Let’s leave it to the audience to decide if is a sarcasm to the Americans or simply a series of absurd dirty jokes. Apparently the producer alleged that this movie is to let the civilized Westerners learn a lesson from Borat, the Kazakh reporter who came to America on a sacred mission of improving his homeland. Whether or not this objective has been achieved, the movie is to many an introduction of the mysterious world between Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
The revelation is an unbearably backward, racist and unequal Kazakhstani culture shared by many of her neighbours in Eastern Europe. In the depicted Kazakhstan, homosexuals and Jews are to be condemned, so is Uzbekistan. Men expose their private parts in front of others. When they propose to their wife-to-be, they “abduct” them using a big gunny. Borat’s behavious in America seems simply barbaric to anyone.
The entire Arab world banned the movie with the exception of Lebanon. Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry denied the allegations and threatened to take legal actions.
But is the movie telling the truth? The essay guides you through the history of Kazakhstan.
The revelation is an unbearably backward, racist and unequal Kazakhstani culture shared by many of her neighbours in Eastern Europe. In the depicted Kazakhstan, homosexuals and Jews are to be condemned, so is Uzbekistan. Men expose their private parts in front of others. When they propose to their wife-to-be, they “abduct” them using a big gunny. Borat’s behavious in America seems simply barbaric to anyone.
The entire Arab world banned the movie with the exception of Lebanon. Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry denied the allegations and threatened to take legal actions.
But is the movie telling the truth? The essay guides you through the history of Kazakhstan.
Dark age
The 9th largest country in the world, Kazakhstan was once under Soviet rule, and was named Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (Kazakh SSR). During Stalin's rule, mass hunger due to forced collectivization, mass slaughter of elites (thinkers, politicians, writers and poets) and civil unrests had caused a 22% decrease in Kazakh's population.
At the same time, Stalin ordered a policy of Deportation. Some regions of Soviet Union were ethnically cleansed, that means potentially opposing ethnic groups are killed or deported out of the Soviet Union. The regions would then be filled by labours, also deported from all parts of the USSR to one place. Different nationalities were forced to stay in concentration camps or many different parts of the USSR against their will.
Kazakh's own identity and culture were shattered into pieces. There was no more Kazakhs, but Soviets.
Independance
It regained independance on 16 December 1991, six days after it was renamed as Republic of Kazakhstan.
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