5 ms·

A decade ago, before the war in Syria, I hitchhiked from Europe to Egypt for my winter holiday. When I was at the Jordan-Israel border, I got a little extra scr

A decade ago, before the war in Syria, I hitchhiked from Europe to Egypt for my winter holiday. When I was at the Jordan-Israel border, I got a little extra scrutiny from the Israeli officials, because I had -- besides passport stamps from some hostile countries -- in my backpack some textbooks for Kazakh and Tatar linked to my university studies at the time, and the latter had a picture of Kazan's main mosque on the cover. And yet, the official seemed quite knowledgeable about these things, and realized that loads of people interested in Central Asian area studies would have books like that and that didn’t mean they had any interest in Islam etc. So, we chatted about that and Russian/CIS politics for some time and then I was let through. The Israelis must have been carefully observing my body language etc. according to their security policy, but still everything was quite friendly and reasonable. But I doubt that most American officials would ever be so informed about the outside world and reasonable. The last time I visited the US, I was asked about a Kazakh visa in my passport in so harsh a tone it sounded like a reprimand for just having one at all (and in spite of the name ending in -stan, Kazakhstan is generally about one of the most secular countries in Eurasia). And if border control staff don't know anything, one can only expect the worst from the TSA, a job that requires almost no qualifications.

uhhfcuvv 9y ago
> Kazakhstan is generally about one of the most secular countries in Eurasia) Presumably this is one reason why Sacha Baron Cohen chose Kazakhstan to be Borat's hometown - if he had picked an Islamic country he'd be risking a beheading in the streets of London.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  He chose Kazakhstan because he was unlikely to meet anyone who knew about Kazakhstan or was from Kazakhstan. Originally the Borat character was an Albanian named Christo, but there were too many Albanians coming to London by the late 1990s.
  - visarga 9y ago
    Yet the cow-inside-house scene was filmed in Romania and attributed to Kazakhstan. Borat hired some gypsies, told them to put the cow in the house - the gypsies are simple people and would do any silly thing for a little money. Later, when they saw the movie, they were furious, claimed they've been duped.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      > claimed they've been duped. They likely were; I doubt Cohen told them exactly what the actual scene was going to be like.
  - tzs 9y ago
    I wonder why he didn't use a fictional country? That would insure that he wouldn't meet anyone from there. He could even pick one that has been used before, and put a couple references to that prior use, to give fans a bit of trivia to notice. For example, use Franistan, and have a reference to the Maharincess of Franistan's 1952 visit to New York.
    - toyg 9y ago
      You lose part of the comedy value. As with his latest "Brothers Grimsby" or with "Brüno" and all the way to Ali G, Baron-Cohen likes to root his comedy in geographically-defined stereotypes. Occasionally the result latches on somewhat universal figures, but from the beginning it relies on viewers sharing Sacha's prejudices on this or that geographically-defined subculture.
throwaway-h9y7 9y ago
About 20yrs ago, I had a very different experience. While trying to leave Israel my traveling companion and I were detained and repeatedly questioned for 24 hours. The crossing by bus from Jordan into Israel was uneventful, however. While detained, my journal was photocopied (including the contact information of a friend in Egypt who had only recently been released from prison (he was sent to prison because of his poetry), my 35mm camera was destroyed and the film exposed (but I didn't get it back to find this out until nearly a year later), some of our belongings were never returned, and they did not release our luggage to our next destination (Italy)-- we spent days in the airport in Rome before we finally found out that Israeli security had held our bags. When we finally got our backpacks, the Israelis had poured all the liquids-- shampoo, contact lens solution, etc. over everything inside). I spoke with a Palestinian businessman while being detained who told me this treatment is the norm for him when he travels, "They are trying to humiliate you. Don't let them see that it is bothering you. It will only make it worse." (they were metal detecting my underwear at the time of this conversation). The thing the Israelis obsessed the most about during the interrogations (so, I assume it was what made us suspicious after the initial cursory search of our things) was that we had US passports, but our guidebooks for the Middle East and North Africa were all in French (we left on this trip from Paris). The rest of the middle east was truly amazing! Beautiful people!

uhhfcuvv 9y ago

> Kazakhstan is generally about one of the most secular countries in Eurasia) Presumably this is one reason why Sacha Baron Cohen chose Kazakhstan to be Borat's hometown - if he had picked an Islamic country he'd be risking a beheading in the streets of London.

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
He chose Kazakhstan because he was unlikely to meet anyone who knew about Kazakhstan or was from Kazakhstan. Originally the Borat character was an Albanian named Christo, but there were too many Albanians coming to London by the late 1990s.
- visarga 9y ago
  Yet the cow-inside-house scene was filmed in Romania and attributed to Kazakhstan. Borat hired some gypsies, told them to put the cow in the house - the gypsies are simple people and would do any silly thing for a little money. Later, when they saw the movie, they were furious, claimed they've been duped.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    > claimed they've been duped. They likely were; I doubt Cohen told them exactly what the actual scene was going to be like.
- tzs 9y ago
  I wonder why he didn't use a fictional country? That would insure that he wouldn't meet anyone from there. He could even pick one that has been used before, and put a couple references to that prior use, to give fans a bit of trivia to notice. For example, use Franistan, and have a reference to the Maharincess of Franistan's 1952 visit to New York.
  - toyg 9y ago
    You lose part of the comedy value. As with his latest "Brothers Grimsby" or with "Brüno" and all the way to Ali G, Baron-Cohen likes to root his comedy in geographically-defined stereotypes. Occasionally the result latches on somewhat universal figures, but from the beginning it relies on viewers sharing Sacha's prejudices on this or that geographically-defined subculture.

throwaway-h9y7 9y ago

About 20yrs ago, I had a very different experience. While trying to leave Israel my traveling companion and I were detained and repeatedly questioned for 24 hours. The crossing by bus from Jordan into Israel was uneventful, however. While detained, my journal was photocopied (including the contact information of a friend in Egypt who had only recently been released from prison (he was sent to prison because of his poetry), my 35mm camera was destroyed and the film exposed (but I didn't get it back to find this out until nearly a year later), some of our belongings were never returned, and they did not release our luggage to our next destination (Italy)-- we spent days in the airport in Rome before we finally found out that Israeli security had held our bags. When we finally got our backpacks, the Israelis had poured all the liquids-- shampoo, contact lens solution, etc. over everything inside). I spoke with a Palestinian businessman while being detained who told me this treatment is the norm for him when he travels, "They are trying to humiliate you. Don't let them see that it is bothering you. It will only make it worse." (they were metal detecting my underwear at the time of this conversation). The thing the Israelis obsessed the most about during the interrogations (so, I assume it was what made us suspicious after the initial cursory search of our things) was that we had US passports, but our guidebooks for the Middle East and North Africa were all in French (we left on this trip from Paris). The rest of the middle east was truly amazing! Beautiful people!