by Dianne Post, Nov 29, 2018
Four Central Phoenix • Inez Casiano NOW members (Dianne Post, Julie Karcis, Cindy Guerra and David Ayodele) met on Monday, November 19 with four members of a delegation from Kazakhstan organized by Global Ties. The group consisted of all lawyers: Vladislaw Trifonov is an advisor to the Governor about disability issues; Aigul Shakibayeva is a lawyer and human rights activist; and Gulzada Serzhan is the co-founder of Feminita: Kazakhstan Feminist Initiative. We were the first women’s group they had met with in their three-week travels from Washington, D.C. to New York, Syracuse, Detroit, and then Phoenix on the way home. They did love how warm it was here especially after those earlier visits!
The very interesting two-hour discussion, facilitated by two simultaneous translators, included topics such as the women’s marches and their impact, abortion and birth control access, the low percentage of women in political office, sex education, and gun control. They knew a lot about American politics including the Parkland kids, the potential impact of the new Supreme Court justice on abortion, and what percentage of women were in office before and after this latest election. I doubt few of us know that much about Kazakhstan – or even where to find it.
A young man whose card we never got had forsaken law for psychology and was working on a sex education curricula. Gulzada was attempting to regularize the organization but finding it hard going to convince the government to let them register as an NGO.
They had questions about quotas, what kind of actions worked best to change the law, the bathroom issue with transgender people, and the hierarchy of laws regarding how marijuana was treated since it is illegal at the federal level but legal in many states, and the six NOW issues. We also talked about the impact of religion on our Arizona politics, local control by our cities, and the prominence of lawyers in every human rights fight.
Cindy talked about the state and national conferences and rallies and the structure of NOW. Julie focused on health care. David described how the PAC worked and the Facebook ads we sponsored during the recent campaigns. I outlined many of the existing laws that hinder human rights and what kinds of laws we have attempted to pass including the ERA.
I have been in Kazakhstan twice, once to organize and once to host, a women lawyers conference of former Soviet Union countries when I lived in Russia. As the younger lawyers went to hike up some mountain, I stayed at the base drinking coffee at an outside stand up table in the snow. It was March and probably just above freezing. Of course I was well dressed for it! While I waited, I watched the most extraordinary show – a young man on horseback courting a young woman by riding bareback back and forth very fast and performing fantastic feats like hanging off the horse to put a flower at her feet and flipping himself around on the horse as it rode past. Kazakhs are supposedly the best horseman in the world. It was like watching a movie!
Gulzada is working on organizing a lesbian conference in Kiev in March 2019. I was in Kiev on 9-11 and thought I just might be living there a while. So let’s just say – that should be interesting. As the meeting ended, the group gave us two small gifts: a bar of chocolate (they do make good chocolate there) and a little key ring that was a boxing glove and says Kazakhstan on the wrist band, because, as the young man said, “You are all fighters.” Not only is he right, but we have to be fighters for human rights across the globe too.
