When British comic Sacha Baron Cohen made his world debut two weeks ago as Borat Sagdiyev, the sexist, anti-semitic Kazakh reporter who sets out to document life in the United States “for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan,” it was unclear whether the biggest joke was on the Americans, the Kazakhs, or the fact that Cohen is Cambridge-educated and is in fact Jewish.
Then again, the Borat movie could have positive impact. In a letter to The Globe and Mail Monday, Nov. 6, Montreal environmentalist Ihab Hashim argued that, “The Borat character may have the unintended consequence of getting people further acquainted with Kazakhstan and the rest of the ‘Stans’ in Central Asia.”
“Some of his jokes are so offensive. He is terrible!” Hashim said laughingly about Borat in an interview the day following the publication of his letter.
Despite Cohen’s often crude humour, Hashim is glad that Borat is helping to bring the topic of Kazakhstan to the attention of the Western world. Hashim is an independent environmentalist and has been fascinated with Central Asia for many years now. This summer he will be making a trip to the area to work on a documentary.
One of his primary areas of interest is the Aral Sea crises, which according to Hashim is one of the century’s most devastating ecological crisis. The issue gets a lot of media coverage in the former Soviet Union, but is hardly ever heard of in North America.
“There is a possibility that the Aral may be gone by 2012,” said Hashim. He became interested in the Aral Sea crisis and in Karakalpakia, the region in Uzbekistan adjacent to the sea because, he said, “during Soviet times very little information was disclosed about this area. It was kept obscure, hidden; studying it was like unveiling a secret.”
The Aral Sea, which is no longer one single body of water but three smaller ones, is located between the western border of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Its decline began several decades ago when, under the Soviet regime, a system of irrigation canals and pipelines was built to transport water from the Aral to further regions of Uzbekistan to support the cultivation of the country’s main export, cotton.
Although the damage was mainly caused by the Uzbeks, both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are deeply affected by the crisis.
The figures speak for themselves. The Aral has now shrunk to 15 per cent of its original volume, uncovering 40,000 square kilometres of what used to be the sea floor.
Hashim’s specific area of study is the way the destruction of the environment affects people’s lives. In this case, the people affected are 500,000 Karakalpaks living in the area. Karakalpaks are a nation of Turkish origin who are distinct from Uzbeks but used to mainly live on the territory of Uzbekistan. Because of the crisis, they are forced to leave the area, and many have fled to Kazakhstan. The Aral is located in a very arid, desert area and used to be their main source of water.
“Some experts call these kinds of people environmental refugees,” Hashim explained, adding that Karakalpaks have a very high mortality rate, due in part to chemicals abandoned after the biological weapons testing undertaken by the former Soviet Union after the Second World War.
Because of the decline of the sea, the island of Ostrov Vozrozhdeniya (Russian for Island of Rebirth), where the testing took place, has now become attached to the main land, making it easy for the chemicals to spread.
“In the 1980s, all the saigas [a breed of deer] in the area dropped dead because they had been contaminated by bio-weapons,” Hashim said. “Most of the fish from the Aral are gone, and fishermen have died as well.”
When asked about how many fish remain in what’s left of the sea, Hashim replied, “One or two.” Sadly, he’s partly joking.
According to Hashim, this ecological disaster is unstoppable. At this point, there is no way to keep the Aral from drying out entirely.
“Some organizations like M
