Summer Word Food: Social Contract & Media

The Pushback Talks Summer Series is back!

This summer, Fredrik & Leilani are serving up what we call Word Food – bite-sized conversations that pack a punch. Here's how it works: each week, we randomly select two words and dive into a 10-15 minute exploration of how these seemingly simple words intersect with our complex socio-political moment.

Think of it as intellectual snacking with substance – light enough for your summer playlist, deep enough to make you think twice about the world around us. 

New episodes out every Wednesday, so make this your midweek ritual for curious minds.

This week: Social Contract & Media

Transcript

Fredrik Gertten 0:03

I'm Fredrik Gertten and I'm the filmmaker.

Leilani Farha 0:06

And I'm Leilani Farha, and I'm the advocate.

Fredrik Gertten 0:08

And this is Pushback Talks Summer Special, where we play with words, me and Leilani, and we call it word food. Leilani, are you ready? I feel like I'm on a game show. You are. I'm ready. Let's go. Here's a word for you, Leilani. The social contract.

Leilani Farha 0:32

That's two words. And my reply in an instant is the social contract is dead.

Fredrik Gertten 0:41

Okay. Did it ever exist? More I existed in our minds, of course.

Leilani Farha 0:48

It existed in our minds. You know, it's such a good question. Did it ever exist? My entire career was based on some idea that the social contract was something other people believed in and that governments had committed to. Um, when they signed international law and these treaties that say everyone should have adequate housing, food, water and sanitation, health, education, um, you know, cultural rights, oh, rights around employment, of course, the ability to unionize, organize. To me, that was all about the social contract. And, you know, almost all of the world's governments have signed that treaty that contains all of those things. So I used to believe that. And now, you know, we're in this place, this horrible place right now, where it's clear international law is meaningless. Governments never intended, I don't think, to hold themselves accountable, and they certainly aren't holding themselves accountable now. And so I don't know where we're at. Um, but I do know that people want the social contract. And they are demanding it.

Fredrik Gertten 2:03

You know, I made this my latest film, Breaking Social, is about the breaking of the social contract. So I've I've been thinking a lot about it, especially because I think the kind of the meaning of the social contract is in all of us, you know, this kind of we want to be good, we want to be responsible for our community, and we don't like when people are too pushy or too egoistic. Um, so it's in us as human beings to do good together. But obviously, it became really hard, and we have a society that is rewarding the people who break the social contract. And of course, now when we have the fascists and governments around the world um who happily break it and make are proud of breaking the social contract. Of course, it will be very hard, but I still think that a part of our resistance needs to be to stand by values. I think our values are part of our defense. So we when they go low, we we still have to go high. We can't go low with them. I think uh kind of a leftist populism is kind of it's not so fun, you know. Sometimes you can communicate in a good way, but I think it's I think it's wrong. I think we have to kind of stand up for for moral values, human rights, and for some kind of social contract.

Leilani Farha 3:38

I agree with that. I agree with that, and I don't think there's any other path. I mean, what's the alternative to just abandoned values? What I do think though, Frederick, is on the left, if you want to use that language, which we tend not to use, but progressives, let's say, whatever, we're not so good at at packaging it, selling it, and uh making it a requirement. Um yeah, so and we have to do better at at putting those values as as the way forward. Um and and I mean it's so awful for people and our young people, you know, you and I both have young, you know, kids and you know, young adults, I guess. And you know, they will do everything right. They get their education, they're doing internships, they're doing this, there's summer jobs, etc. And at the end of it, they may not have a home they can afford, they may not have a decent job, they won't have a pension, they won't be unionized, etc.

Fredrik Gertten 4:44

So but values. Leilana, you have to push it to me.

Leilani Farha 4:49

I'm gonna give you a word. It's a big word. It's a small word, but it's a big word. Are you ready for it? No, yes, five, four, three, two, one. The word is media.

Fredrik Gertten 5:01

Media. Oh, it sounds like somebody who's reading tarot cards in in a little shop in in Ottawa. Is that a media? You can foresee the future. Ah, your card looks like you might be getting laid tonight, or I don't know. Media. Oh, you mean you're talking about mass media, you're talking about journalists, journalists and stuff, and stuff. Oh, yeah. Um, you know, I was a journalist, I worked as a journalist for many years, and uh I have a deep respect for journalism. It's always been crappy journalism, commercial journalism. I mean, so it's not that everything is, you know, everything is heroic, but but I think when media and journalists are doing the job well, they are trying to see the cracks on the wall and to say, hey, there's something wrong here. Let's so so society can fix it, you know. I it's um it's a function of democracy that is needed. Yes. And I think the one of the biggest crises right now uh is the death of the local media, which is happening all over the world. Uh, and in the US, I think almost all the small newspapers, city newspapers has gone, which means that there I I what I see from the US is that people don't even vote locally anymore, you know. So it's kind of a very important part of democracy goes away because democracy has to come from the local level, I think, and up. It's not only about electing a president or a prime minister, it's also about who's ruling your city and in what direction your city is going. So I think we we need to kind of reinvent the the local media, the local journalism. I think that's really important. But of course, also we I mean, we take it the other way around. The local journalism in Gaza uh has been extremely important. So important that Israel has started to target the journalists. And now I saw a post saying that there are more killed journalists in Gaza than in the First World War, Second World War, the Vietnam War, the Afghanistan War. I think more dead journalists in Gaza. It's it's very hard to comprehend. But it tells you something about the power of storytelling. The power of truth? The power of truth, and it's I mean, you can imagine if if the Jews uh in the time of Hitler had social media and could broadcast from the ghetto of Warsaw and from all the other places where the horrible things happened. Yeah. Would that have changed the the course of history? Hopefully. Hopefully.

Leilani Farha 8:14

Hopefully. Hasn't changed it. I wouldn't say that actually. I wouldn't say that it hasn't changed anything. It hasn't changed the reality for people in Gaza. All of this, you know, it's what uh Motaz Azeza, the very famous photographer uh and journalist, uh, he became a journalist because of what's happening in Gaza. It's what he said, like, I showed everything in the first few months. I showed everything, and it made no difference. Um, but it it isn't totally true. I mean, people around the world have awakened to what's happening in Gaza and what's happening to Palestinians in a new way. I mean, this it's it is phenomenal, and millions of people, well, probably billions, have protested, et cetera. The one thing that uh when I think of media, I mean, in my work, human rights, we say is a an accountability, it's it's about accountability, about the accountability of states. And I've always interacted with media that way as well, that media can hold governments accountable to things like human rights. And I've worked very closely with journalists. I've always tried to, and and not just so that like I can be in the limelight, rather educating them about the financialization of housing, trying to explain to them what the human right to housing means. I am very disappointed in mainstream media since Gaza has unfolded and the deep bias in some of the media outlets that I would normally have relied on for accountability in my own country, for example. Oh, every media is biased, but the Globe and Mail, our kind of national newspaper, the CBC, um, all of the mainstream channels, um, the BBC in the UK has come under complete fire. So many, the New York Times.

Fredrik Gertten 10:12

Can I can I add something here? I rem I told you in an earlier episode that we were sued by a Dole Food Company for a film called Bananas. And when I was under attack, um the media has an easy way to handle things is to say this side and the other side, you know? It's like they they call it balance because then they don't really have to go deep. Yeah, they can stay on the surface and they can say, okay, the authorities in Gaza said 100 kids killed, and then Israel says uh there was a mass fighter in the crowd, or uh we will uh we will investigate, whatever. You know, it's so it's a very easy way of just balancing. And you know, when I was sued, it was a small company in Sweden against the biggest fruit company in the world. It's not an evil, says Frederick says Dole. But that's how it was treated. And and I think that's the media has to go deeper, you know, and just and also emotionally say, okay, what is happening here? Who is who is the big guy? Yeah, and who is the small guy? Who is David and who is Goliath? And I think the the laziness of many journalists, and of course, in the in also in a time of political messaging of talking points, you it's very easy to get lost because the talking points sent out are are done by really smart people. So it just by repeating the talking points from the powerful, you're already then doing a shitty job.

Leilani Farha 11:55

Yeah.

Fredrik Gertten 11:56

That's my that's my take.

Leilani Farha 11:58

Yeah. Journalists are also very poorly paid. So that contributes to that kind of what we might call laziness. And a lot of journalists are told what they can and cannot say by the powers that be, especially in these the big mainstream media.

Fredrik Gertten 12:15

Yeah, that's how it is. But we love journalists and keep it up, colleagues and friends, uh, and and support good journalists and give them give them love because they also need it. And we need the truth. We need the truth.

Leilani Farha 12:31

So if you like our podcast, you have to let us know. Please send us comments, rate us. I think that helps. Promote the podcast. Tell your friends about us. We need more listeners, and we need a little bit of love too. Love can come in the form of money. If you want to give us a little money every month, you can go to patreon.com, look for pushback talks. Every euro, every pound, every dollar buys Frederick a cortato. No, it helps us produce the podcast. Otherwise, we do it for free.

Fredrik Gertten 13:09

See you next week. More words in our word food.

Leilani Farha 13:13

Word food. Bye, Frederick.

Fredrik Gertten 13:15

Bye, Lelani.

Kirsten McRae 13:20

Pushback Talks is produced by WG Film. To support the podcast, become a patron by going to patreon.com slash pushback talks. Follow us on social media at make underscore the shift and push underscore the film. Or check out our websites makeshift.org, pushthefilm.com, or breaking socialfilm.com