Borat! Meet Kazakhstan's real-life roving TV reporter. And he's not happy

Jantik is the nearest thing to Sacha Baron Cohen's comedy creation. And, with his President and his people behind him, he wants revenge

Suddenly, the war between one comedian and an entire nation-state is getting personal.

Sacha Baron Cohen's creation of Borat, a Jew-baiting, sister-snogging, horse-urine-drinking Kazakh television reporter, has so angered the former Soviet republic that it is fighting back with every means at its disposal - including a local celebrity who calls himself Borat's brother.

So, as Baron Cohen's mockumentary, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, opens in the US and heads to the UK in November, perhaps the strangest feud in the history of light entertainment grows ever more bizarre.

To date, Borat - famous, among other indelicacies, for singing "Throw the Jew Down the Well" at a US country and western bar, and arriving at a film premiere on a wagon pulled by four peasant women - has provoked the Kazakh authorities to ban his website, threaten legal action, make formal protests (though they deny that they will raise the matter with President George Bush) and buy airtime on US television to correct the portrayal of their countrymen as primitives.

Now, Kazakh celebrities have joined the conflict, and leading them is Jantik, the man who was once the country's closest equivalent to Borat. Slipping into character for a new, avenging role as Borat's "brother", he says: "I was on the Tube in London. A black man comes to sit opposite me, and keeps staring. I say 'What are you staring at?' but he keeps looking hard. He finally asks me to come back to his place. I had never come across a homosexual man before. In the Soviet Union, it was a crime. We were told it was our duty to beat them. It is different now - we have at least three gay bars in Almaty." Then, more seriously, he adds: "Perhaps we should show the world that we are cleverer than Borat." He is threatening to attend the London premiere as Borat's brother, along with his mother and horse.

Most of Jantik's 15 million countrymen don't see anything funny at all about Baron Cohen's outrageous character. The movie opens with Borat introducing his fellow Kazakh villagers before he leaves for a reporting stint in America. The line-up includes the "town rapist" - "Naughty, naughty!" - and a blonde he kisses full on the lips. She turns out to be his sister, whom he proudly calls "fourth best prostitute in all of country", while she holds up her trophy for the camera. He then leaves in a car pulled by a horse.

Jantik, 33 - full name Jantemir Baimukhamedov - became one of Kazakhstan's most popular TV personalities as a "VJ" on the local equivalent of MTV. He admits he occasionally lampooned his guests to get laughs. But unlike Baron Cohen, he says, he stopped this "victim comedy" a long time ago. He complains Borat is "very rough" with those he interviews. "In my early career, I did that sometimes. It's easy to take who you are interviewing and make everyone laugh at them. But after some time, I understood this was not the right thing to do."

Jantik, now a musician and film-maker, wants to turn the joke back on Baron Cohen. "I am so proud of being from Kazakhstan," he says. "People have seen Borat, but no one has come to see what we are like and to ask what we think of him."

Kazakhs who feel their ethnic identity has been hijacked by the comedian have accused Baron Cohen of racism, while the government is threatening legal action. (Baron Cohen, himself Jewish, replied in character, saying: "I am glad they are suing this Jew.") The Kazakh ambassador in London told Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, that if Borat were black or Asian, Baron Cohen's act would be blatantly unacceptable.

One Kazakh official is reported to have complained: "Why does he pick on Kazakhstan? The other 'stans' are much worse." For all the irritation, Baron Cohen's fans argue that Borat has put Kazakhstan on the map and that his main target is the prejudices of others. Jantik disagrees: "Just like he treats his guests as victims, he has created an image of Kazakhs as primitive. What he creates in his comedy is just hate."