In August 2004, the Chief Rabbi of Kazakhstan, at an international religious meeting in Brussels, stated that in 10 years in the country, he had never faced anti-Semitism. He praised the Government of Kazakhstan for its treatment of the Jewish community.
On October 19, the Associated Press reported that Kazakhstan's Deputy Foreign Minister, Rakhat Aliyev, had invited Cohen to visit Kazakhstan to see how wrong he was about it. In an interview, Aliyev asserted that:
His trip could yield a lot of discoveries—that women not only travel inside buses but also drive their own cars, that we make wine from grapes, that Jews can freely attend synagogues and so on.
Borat's film has frequently been accused of promoting antiziganism. The scenes supposedly filmed in Borat's Kazakhstani village were actually filmed in an impoverished Roma (gipsy) village of Glod in Romania. "USA Today" reports that poverty villagers were offered between $3.30 and $5.50 to bring animals into their houses and perform other acts some critics called humiliating. The studio contends that
participants were paid double the rate recommended by the Romanian movie office for extras.
Two villagers of Glod have hired reparation attorney Ed Fagan to sue the makers of the film for $30 million for human rights abuses. Fagan intends to submit lawsuits in New York and Florida state courts, as well as in Frankfurt, Germany. Fagan said that he hoped to "teach Hollywood a very expensive lesson." The lawsuit was thrown out by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in a hearing in early December 2006 on the ground that the charges were too vague to stand up in court. Fagan plans to refile.
The Borat character has elicited some controversy, mostly related to his frequent displays of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.
Baron Cohen, who is himself Jewish, has explained his character's racism by stating that the segments show how people are sometimes racist because others around them are too and that it is important to stand up against racism.
When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic.
Regarding the enthusiastic response to his song "In My Country There is Problem" (detailed below), he says, "Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism."
However, the Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based group that “...combat[s] anti-Semitism and bigotry of all kinds”, complained to HBO after Borat performed a country western song titled "In My Country There Is Problem" that called on people to 'throw the Jew down the well', warning them that 'you must be careful of his teeth' and that 'you must grab him by his horns', to applause and joining in from some of the audience in Tucson, Arizona. The chorus goes: "Throw the Jew down the well/So my country can be free/You must grab him by his horns/Then we have a big party."
In another scene, Borat visits the Serengeti Range ranch in Texas, where the owner of the ranch confides that he believes the Holocaust was a necessity for Germany. He further implies that he would have no problem running a ranch where people can hunt, in Borat's words, "deer... then Jew."
An interview with James Broadwater, an evangelical Christian and Republican candidate for U.S. Congress from Mississippi, caused Broadwater to receive some hateful emails after an episode of "Da Ali G Show" aired in which Broadwater stated that Jews will go to Hell. He was told that the interview would be played in foreign countries to teach others about the American political system. Broadwater later posted a letter on his website against "Da Ali G Show," explaining that his statement referred to a theological belief that anyone that "accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour will spend eternity in Heaven, while everyone who rejects Him will spend eternity in Hell." Broadwater did not apologise for his comments. Instead, he insisted that "the liberal, anti-God media needs to be brought under the strict control of the FCC, and that as soon as possible."
In the movie, Borat continues to hate Jews and be fearful of them. He does not like to fly while in America in case the Jews "make another 9/11". Later, as he finds himself in a hotel run by an old Jewish couple, he tries to "escape" and throws money at two bugs on the floor, afraid that the Jews have shapeshifted into cockroaches.
Cohen later joked, upon receiving a British comedy award, that Borat was guest of honour at the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran.
In January 2005, after pretending to be making a documentary, Cohen angered a crowd at a rodeo in Salem, Virginia. The crowd first cheered his statements of "support" for the Iraq war, including statements like "We is support your war of terror", and "May George Bush drink the blood of every single man, woman, and child of Iraq". However, the applause softened when he exclaimed "May you destroy their country so that for the next thousand years, not even a single lizard will survive in their desert!" The crowd then got infuriated when he sang the (fictional) Kazakhstan national anthem to an off-key version of the US national anthem.
"If he had been out there a minute longer, I think somebody would have shot him," said one witness. "People were booing him, flipping him off." For his own safety, Cohen was escorted from the venue. (Much of the event appears in the movie. A credulous news report about the incident, aired on a local television station, is included in the DVD extras).
Baron Cohen has also been accused of creating a derogatory image of Kazakhstan.
In November 2005, following Borat's hosting of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon, Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry said he was worried about the character. Spokesman Yerzhan Ashykbayev told a news conference: "We view Mr Cohen's behaviour at the MTV Europe Music Awards as utterly unacceptable, being a concoction of bad taste and ill manners which is completely incompatible with the ethics and civilised behaviour of Kazakhstan's people", concluding "We reserve the right to any legal action to prevent new pranks of the kind."
Baron Cohen has since posted a video on the "Official Borat Homesite" where Borat responds to Ashykbayev in character. In the video, Borat states, in part:
In response to Mr. Ashykbayev's comments, I'd like to state I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my government's decision to sue this Jew. Since the 2003 Tuleyakiv reforms, Kazakhstan is as civilized as any other country in the world. Women can now travel on "inside" of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old. Please, captain of industry; I invite you to come to Kazakhstan where we have incredible natural resources, hardworking labour, and some of the cleanest prostitutes in whole of Central Asia. Goodbye! Dzienkuje!
Reuters quoted an unnamed Western diplomat as saying, "They (the Government of Kazakhstan) are damned if they do [respond] and damned if they don't," he said. "It's sort of unfortunate that he hit upon Kazakhstan." Another unnamed source inside Kazakhstan's Washington embassy called Borat a "one-man diplomatic wrecking ball."