Summer Word Food: Dancing & Supply Chains

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: Dancing & Supply Chains

If you'd like to listen to the previous episode mentioned, you'll find it here: 

How the World Ran Out of Everything, with Peter S. Goodman

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?

Leilani Farha 0:21

I feel like I'm on a game show. You are. I'm ready.

Fredrik Gertten 0:26

Let's go.

Leilani Farha 0:28

Fredrik, your word is dancing.

Fredrik Gertten 0:33

Dancing in the dark. Isn't it? Dancing in the dark. Uh dancing. When I was young, it was like an era of a lot of like traditional jazz. So we danced a lot. And I remember a party. I maybe I was only 18. I danced so much, and my socks were like there was nothing left by the feet. I can still remember that feeling of very fan dancing. And I'm I'm trying to keep it up, but I'm I must admit that I'm um I'm very much that kind of dancer who like to keep my partner close, you know, to move together. And so this kind of rave dance where you dance with yourself. Uh it's hasn't been my thing really.

Leilani Farha 1:22

Not your jam.

Fredrik Gertten 1:23

Not not totally, but I can also go crazy dancing. So dance is important.

Leilani Farha 1:29

Yeah, it's my total happy happy place is dancing. I've used it in all for many reasons to lift the mood.

Fredrik Gertten 1:40

Uh and then you know, as I I've been a lot in in Latin America, and you go to Mexico City or to many other cities around Mexico or Chile or wherever you go, people gather on the squares. You know, these the old colonial cities still have the Spanish structure of having a square. Yes, you know?

Leilani Farha 2:02

Yes.

Fredrik Gertten 2:03

It's not uh a strip, it's actually a place built for people to gather.

Leilani Farha 2:08

Yes, so lovely.

Fredrik Gertten 2:10

In many countries, they also use that square to dance. So they somebody brings a speaker and they dance. So in Argentina it could be tango, but also here in Malmo by the by the sea, there are people dancing tango or salsa by the sea. So it's so beautiful just to see people dance. You know, it's it is uh it's the beauty of human connections, it's everything what we love with humanity you see uh when people dance. Absolutely. Uh it's like the total opposite. I mean, when you see Trump make dance moves, it's the opposite of love in dancing.

Leilani Farha 2:53

Absolutely. I remember one of the first uh uh city visits I did when I was the UN Special Rapporteur on Housing. I went to Detroit and I was investigating with the special rapporteur on the right to water the city. It was shutting off people's water. And Detroit is made up of a lot of African American families, many of them very poor, and they were living with no water in their homes. And it was it was a devastating visit, very bleak, um, horrible circumstances that people were living in. And at the end of this visit, it was several days, they took us to a community center where they were eating like fried chicken and all sorts of foods, potato salads, and they I mean Detroit, right? It's like the city of music. They put on this music and everyone started to dance. And they invited me and the other special rapporteur up to dance. And we didn't know it was like synchronized dancing. They were doing these like full-on, real dances, and we didn't know what we were doing, but they had a way of shadowing you and whispering in your ear, turn left, move your foot right. It was amazing. So we could actually join the dancing. It was one of the most kind of jubilant moments after such heartache, you know, seeing such heartache, and then for the whole community to come together. It was amazing.

Fredrik Gertten 4:24

Yeah, I I actually think that the dancing is also one of these things that can change your mood, you know, from being depressed and uh everything is shitty. And then suddenly you you start to move your ass and and and it works. So true. So true. You can see it's like the adrenaline coming in. You know, something happens that makes you smile suddenly. Absolutely. So people out there, let's dance this time.

Leilani Farha 4:54

Get up and dance.

Fredrik Gertten 4:55

And dance against fascism and dance against stupidity, dance against horror, you know?

Leilani Farha 5:03

Yeah.

Fredrik Gertten 5:04

So I guess that's that's what we're going to do this summer. But Leilani, you it's my time to give you a word. Or a few words.

Leilani Farha 5:14

Uh-oh.

Fredrik Gertten 5:15

Uh-oh. From dance to supply chain.

Leilani Farha 5:19

Oh my god. Wow. Wow. Well, everyone should listen to this amazing podcast we did with Peter S. Goodman, the global economic correspondent for the New York Times. He's written an amazing book about supply chains. To be honest, I I when I hear those words supply chain, I feel really depressed. Those are like boring words to me, supply chain. But then you read Peter S. Goodman's book and it's like fascinating. So when I think about supply chains, I think first and foremost about COVID, another very boring word, a very depressing time in the world history. Um, when supply chains were completely disrupted and shelves started to become bare, and we all had to learn why that is. And there's this concept now that most businesses only, what's that? Oh, I can't even remember. There's a name for it, but where businesses only stock what they think they can sell quickly and immediately. And because of that, and because of all the slowdown with supply chain, we ended up with bear shelves.

Fredrik Gertten 6:34

Yeah.

Leilani Farha 6:35

Yeah. You are you remember a lot.

Speaker 1 6:38

Really?

Leilani Farha 6:39

I thought that was pretty that was pretty lame in my opinion.

Fredrik Gertten 6:42

We will we will ask Peter to come in and correct. Yeah, that's right. Exactly.

Leilani Farha 6:46

But also, I mean, we're at a time right now where all this tariff talk is happening and uh President Trump is pushing back against globalization and the way in which the world's economies have been working. And he's not recognizing that we have created a world economy based on these supply chains. And if you start putting all these tariffs, then it completely disrupts all of the way in which the world's economy works and individual countries' economies work.

Fredrik Gertten 7:23

But of course, um we've been talking before about you know the importance of buying local and to let the money circulate in your in your community.

Speaker 1 7:34

Yeah.

Fredrik Gertten 7:34

So you shouldn't go and have coffee at the Starbucks. You should go to a locally owned coffee shop. You know, I mean, it should that's I think it's always important to remember. At the same time, people around the world who are buying our goods also have the right to produce stuff that we buy, you know. So it's there, there is a balance, and and if that should work, we need, of course, fair trade, a fair trade system. And we also need a fair supply chain, you know, because what Peter shows us in his book is that the big players are now controlling the shipping, and they're also the small business, they don't get access to the containers anymore. So it is again a world where the the big guys are taking all the benefits of the system, and so it a fair supply chain is also something that governments around the world should work for. And then you have you need to take down the monopolies and break down the monopolies who are now one big Danish company, Mark, some Chinese, some Americans. And it's like you it's very few companies who dominate the the whole shipping industry around the world. Yeah, and they're also not paying the sailors, they're not paying the truck drivers. So it's like it's like a way of that's what Peter shows very clearly in his book that everybody who is working in the supply chain has much worse conditions now than it was 20, 30 years ago. The huge difference. So it's also where the shippers, I mean, that the these companies make more money than ever, but their workers make less money than ever. So it's again a reflection on where we all have landed. So there's a lot to do. There's a lot to do.

Leilani Farha 9:36

You know a lot about supply chains, Frederick. I read it.

Fredrik Gertten 9:39

You're a good student, too. I read a freaking book, and uh and I listened to the podcast. Listen to the podcast, please. Exactly.

Speaker 1 9:48

Exactly. Uh, and Peter's book, which I actually can't remember the title of. How the world run out of everything.

Leilani Farha 9:55

Oh, how the world ran out of everything. There we go. So good at at giving examples, and he follows this kind of small business owner who has everything made in China, some kind of, I can't remember what it was, it was some kind of toy that he and his wife, I think, had invented, and just the toils and tribulations of trying to get this toy to market in time for Christmas, uh, which would be his biggest uh time to sell this product. And uh really interesting. And I w the only I will just say one more thing. I said that I find supply chain, though those words boring, but when you really start thinking about the fact that so many of the things that we consume and use on a daily basis come from these shipping containers, never dawns on me. So it's pretty interesting.

Fredrik Gertten 10:45

Supply chain the world order. It's a worldly world food we are doing here, you know?

Leilani Farha 10:52

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Fredrik Gertten 10:54

Thank you, Leilani. Talk next week. We will. Bye.

Leilani Farha 11:00

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 11:38

Good. See you soon.

Leilani Farha 11:40

Bye, Frederick.

Fredrik Gertten 11:41

Bye.

Kirsten McRae 11:46

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 maketheshift.org, pushthefilm.com, or breaking socialfilm.com.