Come, Borat, to land of jokes you are making

ALMATY, Kazakhstan – A top Kazakh official has an invitation for Sacha Baron Cohen, whose character, Borat, parodies a Kazakh journalist: Come visit.

Deputy Foreign Minister Rakhat Aliyev said in an interview that he understands why Kazakhs are unhappy about Cohen’s character. But he told newspaper Kazakhstan Today that “we must have a sense of humor and respect other people’s freedom of creativity.”

“I’d like to invite Cohen here,” he said. “He can discover a lot of things. Women drive cars, wine is made of grapes, and Jews are free to go to synagogues.”

Cohen’s character has presented inhabitants of the ex-Soviet republic as addicted to horse urine, fond of shooting dogs, and viewing incest as a respectable tradition. Cohen’s film, with the suitably fractured-English title of “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” will be released Nov. 3.

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry recently ran ads on CNN, in The New York Times, and in the International Herald Tribune citing facts and figures on the nation’s economic growth, civil liberties and cultural achievements.

“It’s useless to offend an artist and threaten to sue him,” Aliyev was quoted as saying. “It will only further damage the country’s reputation and make Borat even more popular.”