Word Food: Activist burnout & Patience

Pushback Talks Season 9 is here with "Word Food"!

This season, Fredrik & Leilani return with their signature bite-sized episodes: sharp, surprising, 15-minute explorations of the words that shape our world. Each week, they pick a single word (or two) and unpack how its simple surface hides deeper social, political, and economic realities.

Think of it as thought-provoking “intellectual snacking” -  quick enough for your commute, rich enough to shift how you see power, privilege, and the systems around us.

This week’s episode:

Activist burnout: a discussion about their respective touching points with activist burnout.

Patience: an emphasis on the value of patience in their line of work.

New episodes drop every week.

Make this your ritual for keeping your curiosity - and your resistance - alive!

Transcript

Fredrik Gertten 0:02

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

Leilani Farha 0:05

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

Fredrik Gertten 0:09

Hello, advocates. This is Pushback Talk. And this is our, you know, the way of us keeping alive, you know, putting words to each other, and we call it word food. Let's play with words, Leilani. Are you ready for a new word coming from me?

Leilani Farha 0:30

I'm never ready, but here I am.

Fredrik Gertten 0:32

You're not ready. This is something we need to talk about. Uh-uh. Activist burnout.

Leilani Farha 0:39

Oh, yeah. Activist burnout. I've never had that, to be honest. Strangely. Why why is that? Uh I have something else that's related, which is a deep questioning of what should activism look like at this geopolitical moment. Um as a human rights lawyer, obviously, uh human rights are lacking legitimacy, maybe. Um no one's paying attention to them.

Fredrik Gertten 1:11

Oh, we do. We pay attention, but it's obviously not enough, and the people in power don't. The people in power don't. That's who I meant. Because I think the language do. Yeah. No, I I want to come confront you straight on. I think the language of human rights and of international human rights law is winning terrain. More and more people are using it, you know.

Leilani Farha 1:35

I think that's probably right. And I think people are on the ground, everyday people are paying attention to it and learning about it in new ways. Like you hear, so especially because of Gaza, you hear a lot of people, especially young people, who really know the law. True. But states really have very little regard, do not want to be held accountable, will not hold each other accountable. There's a coven, as we say, like a uh a club of impunity. Yeah.

Fredrik Gertten 2:08

Um of course now with the coalition of Putin Trump and uh and the Chinese, it's like very much uh international law is not that interesting to them. You know, they want to just decide between them.

Leilani Farha 2:21

Yeah, and it allows smaller players off the hook too. So many, many, many years ago, Canada did play a more constructive role around human rights many years ago, um, like in the 80s, maybe, uh, 70s. And that now, without there's no space for that. Not that Canada would play that role now, because our politics have changed, and we are amongst those who don't want to hold ourselves or anyone else accountable. But I want to go over to the We were talking about activist burnouts.

Fredrik Gertten 2:55

Yeah, because you know what, Leilani, when I I did my my last film, Breaking Social, I met a lot of activists because that film is also about activism, and they gave me that term. I've been suffering from an activist burnout. Well, then they said that the film gave them energy back. But how do we help each other not to fall into that feeling of burnout? It's sometimes it's of course also that many of the organizations of the you know of the left or whatever we can call it, the resistant human rights resistance is it's like sometimes poorly organized, and it's people work too much and too long meetings and too long, whatever. So people get tired. It's sometimes easier for the more authoritarian traditions. I mean, which also the left had its, you know, the communist parties and so on, really, where everything was decided from up and down, which you have with uh wealthy people, they decide, and then the rest, and then they, you know, they pay for people to send out their messages, but then the resistance is like more chaotic and more diverse, and the structures make people also tired. I can I can see that.

Leilani Farha 4:09

Yeah, it's it's interesting. Uh when I was appointed special rapporteur, another rapporteur said to me, I a woman, she was a little younger than me, and she had been the rapporteur on the right to water. Her name is Caterina de Albuquerque, and very sadly she died recently of cancer, resurgence of cancer. But she said to me, she was a very effective special rapporteur, and she said to me, You will not survive this job if you do not laugh and have fun. And I really took that to heart, and I did have fun as UNSR, and you'll you'll know because we traveled together to many places and we laughed a lot, and we had a good time, and we worked extremely hard. But you also cried a lot. Of course, yeah. You've got to let the emotions out. That's a life lesson in life, not just out of the world.

Fredrik Gertten 5:06

I think that was also I I could see that as one of your strengths was that you you could also cry when you got overwhelmed by the conditions people were living in and so on. And the anger of meeting ignorant people in power and so on.

Leilani Farha 5:22

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I run an organization and I I wonder if activist burnout is something that my team feels. I don't think so. I mean, we did we took some you know important measures. We went to a four-day work week. Um, not all of us stick to that, but nevertheless, it's there if if uh for the taking. Um, and we do try to have fun and we have meetings every week where it's we don't just talk about work and we talk about our lives and exchange, you know, personal things um if you want to. There's of course no pressure. So I do wonder if things like that are helpful. I also wonder if I'm just not that activist, and that's why I don't burn out.

Fredrik Gertten 6:05

You are a freaking activist, my friend. And I'm I'm happy that you're not burnt out because we need you.

Leilani Farha 6:13

I suppose with the the situation in Gaza, I was getting quite burnt out. Um, burnt out isn't the right word, and one feels a responsibility to people who are suffering far more than me sitting here in Ottawa in my comfortable home, uh, warm when it should be and cool when it should be. Um, no war at my doorstep, um, no genocide, you know. So while I definitely was and continue to wear Gaza, and I've had to limit some social media access to s to preserve myself, I do feel like, oh, wait a second, like I don't activist burnout, I don't have time for that. And it serves no Palestinian well if I have activist burnout. So, um, or any person living in homelessness or housing precarity or whatever I'm working on. So yeah, there it is.

Fredrik Gertten 7:11

Good. We need to support each other and make make our friends smile also in between. Important.

Leilani Farha 7:19

Exactly.

Fredrik Gertten 7:20

Over to you.

Leilani Farha 7:21

Okay. I have a a kind of quiet word for you. Let's see what you do with it.

Fredrik Gertten 7:27

Some sweetness.

Leilani Farha 7:29

I don't know if it's sweet, but the word is patience. Oh, patience, patience, acceptance.

Fredrik Gertten 7:43

Do you do yoga? This is this is like a joke between me and uh the cinematographer I work with, Janice Davila from Brazil. Uh, when we get a really horrible seat on a plane, or you know, or a delay, or you know, just stuck in an airport, or or you know, or the situation is stressful, and we can't, you know, there is no time to sleep or eat or whatever, but then we have this acceptance. Yeah, it's kind of good, you know, to accept, okay, I'm stuck here, I can't do a shit. Instead of running around and being angry, you can just sit down and say, Okay, it is what it is, I'm not going to get angry because if due, I will lose even more energy. So reckons, patience. You know, I'm born restless.

Leilani Farha 8:32

Yes, I know that.

Fredrik Gertten 8:33

You know that. You know that I'm born restless, and that can be a very um destructive uh thing to be. So I think the battle over my life has been to try to convert being restless into something productive, to direct the energy into do stuff. Right. And I think that's been a part of my, I wouldn't call it success, but I mean it's been a way of handling those energies. And I mean, I'm still restless. I I need to go out and walk, you know, I need to do something. I and sometimes I just sit and scroll on my phone, you know, instead of watching a film or reading a book. I have the lack of patience, maybe, but I'm I'm also think that that I'm better in it now. Also because you know, the the process of making documentaries, it's such a long, long journey. Every film, and it's not only to create the idea and to make the you know, go to places and talk to people and film and shoot, it's also the process of of funding, which is like much more stressful. And as you know, the conditions for documentary filmmakers and a lot of people of the arts these days is really, really tough, tougher than than I can remember. So it means also that the people who sit on the little money, which is normally quite not nice people, they are just pushing us forward. Yeah, later, later, or they're not answering emails. It's like it's so the time just flies by. It stresses me and it makes me depressed. In some way, I need to accept it and then I need patience, you know. And then I need to okay, I have the experience of getting there, you know, to finish my work, right? But it's it's not really in the pace I would like to do it. If I had more money, I could move much quicker. It's very, very frustrating and see to see like life fly by in some way, because my work depends on their decisions, and it's um and it's I mean, in our case, it's the the national film bodies or you know the regional funds or the mainly the broadcasters. Don't even mention the streamers because they are they're just leaving us behind. You can see now when Netflix is buying HBO on Warner, it's like you there it will be it will be even worse for a lot of people.

Leilani Farha 11:08

Absolutely. I wondered about that actually.

Fredrik Gertten 11:11

Yeah, now we will need you much more. We will need an active audience who seeks out our films and organize special screenings of our films. We need more an active relation to an audience who cares about our craft, you know, the the genre of documentaries. So that's a shootout to all of you out there. Like, like set up, you know, bring people together, book a film, and create a conversation. Because even if we then just charge two, three hundred, four hundred euros, I don't know, if we can do that in a bigger scale, it's it helps us a lot.

Leilani Farha 11:48

Yeah.

Fredrik Gertten 11:48

Because all the other money is going down. Yeah, sorry.

Leilani Farha 11:51

I think there's been a rise, and uh at least uh as someone on the outside of the documentary world, I feel like the past couple of years there's been a rise of the documentary in that certainly, you know, I follow obviously Palestine and um what's happening in Gaza very closely. And people have been really relying on documentary films to understand more about that situation and the plight of the Palestinians, etc. And Palestinian filmmakers and joint ventures have really, it seems like come forward, and it seems there's a great appetite for good documentaries, and there's many good documentaries out there.

Fredrik Gertten 12:33

I think that what documentaries do is that we dive deep into something, you know? Yeah. And uh something that people didn't even know they were interested in. And suddenly there is a film and it creates a conversation, and you go out and say, Oh shit, I didn't read that in a newspaper. This is like it's more in-depth information that we need because the news is so I mean, you we know and we now know the techniques of Trump, you know, to and his look-alikes, you know, is to control the stream of news. So he is basically he is, I mean, you whenever Trump meets somebody, he has a press conference rolling for hours, you know. Yeah, and it's all about him dominating the news. And what we do with documentaries is that we tell different stories. Exactly. And uh, and I think people want and need that those stories. Real content, yeah. On the issue of patience, oh, we were talking about patience, we're talking about patience. I got in one thing I will say patience, yeah.

Leilani Farha 13:39

And I don't know, this must be true in your world of creating documentary films, but as I'm writing this book, I do find I have to be more patient with myself than in my activism. Activism for me is a kind of it's like second nature, or you know, it's like my way of being. Writing is different, it's new to me to write a book. And I notice that it takes some time for an idea to really be born or to really take on enough life to warrant several pages in the book. And so walking in the woods with my dog and just sitting with things and being patient with myself that the idea will come or the way to express the idea will come. This is new for me. Um, I think I'm normally pretty quick uh in my daily work. So patience.

Fredrik Gertten 14:38

Patience, patience, tolerance with myself. Wow, we are patient people. There we go. Thank you, Leilani, and uh see you soon. And to friends, if you want to support the podcast, send us some money on Patreon. It's not bad. Patreon.com pushback talks. See you. See you.

Kirsten McRae 15:05

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.