Word Food: Women, Life, Freedom & Alabama

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:

Women, Life, Freedom: a debate about the people's protests against regimes and at what cost their freedom comes.

Alabama: a take on how racial persecution is anchored in US history and how it compares to today's situation under Trump's government.

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. So let's play with words, Leilani. I uh I have three words for you. Three words. Yeah, they can be combined. Not just one word. No, they can be combined.

Leilani Farha 0:34

Okay.

Fredrik Gertten 0:35

Women, life, freedom.

Leilani Farha 0:39

Iran. Of course, of course. Although now the movement in Iran is far broader than women life freedom. One might just say life and freedom for everyone. Huge, huge protests, obviously. I mean, it gives you chills to see people fighting for their freedom, right? Um, but also chills to see the regime's reaction. I saw yesterday or this morning body bags, body bags, body bags. And we've had more than two years of body bags, like front and center on our social media with Gaza as well. And we don't see body bags from Sudan, but we know people are dying, and I mean many other places, Congo and so yeah, and then there's something funny about what's happening in Iran. I like here, and I'm interested in your perspective, the protest was outside the US embassy, but calling on the US government to intervene, to help them, et cetera. And that makes me not suspicious, but concerned.

Fredrik Gertten 1:54

First of all, I would say women life freedom, the power of the women in Iran, we said it before, is like it's so inspiring. And I think also if you look historically, the researchers have said this that women-led uprisings are more successful generally than uprisings where men have been in the front line. So there is something very specific in this. It's normally because the women-led protests are more nonviolent, and non-violent protests are also more successful. So that's one thing. So I think there is a special hopeful thing about what's happening in Iran, uh, that the women are in the lead, and they have been so I mean, the images coming out of young women are really impressive. Then you mentioned the call for the US stepping in. And in one way, I mean, the Iranian exile is huge in Canada and US, also here in Sweden. Yeah. And of course, they want to be able to go back home and they want the regime to be kicked out, and they don't really care who's doing it, you know, I think emotionally. And I mean that also comes back when you talk about Venezuela. A lot of Venezuelans uh said, yeah, okay, now he the dictator is out. And now you emotionally you can understand them, even if it's it totally shouldn't be like that, that a foreign power steps in, and more than taking him, they also killed 80 people. That's Venezuela. And I I can also see that uh Israel in the US they have a plan, and obviously, this proposing of the son of the Shah is a part of that plan. They need somebody to sell in to the people of Iran, which is and of course we should be suspicious of that because it should be the people of Iran who kind of choose their own leader. It shouldn't be proposed and propelled by by the social media of other nations.

Leilani Farha 4:04

Yeah, and I mean the same for Venezuela. It seems like, in fact, it was some kind of a backroom deal with the vice president and you know, reading all these things. It's it's very alarming, um, especially because I follow the politics of the region, of the Middle East, as it's called. And of course, if the US gets its foothold in Iran, it has huge implications for the region, and of course for Palestinians very particularly, who are already being wiped off the face of the earth, but will be completely wiped off the face of the earth.

Fredrik Gertten 4:45

So it's uh Yeah, but I mean you could also claim that the Iranians maybe hasn't been good for the Palestinians either, even if they've been supporting it. They have also been propelling, you know, wars and I mean, and they're supporting an extreme part of the Palestinian resistance movement instead of supporting the people, the people the people in the middle, you know, the people who most people who can so I think that's I mean that I mean, I I told you a long time ago I that I was at um the first uh Middle East peace conference in Madrid, where the Palestinians and Americans and Russians met for a first time. And it the Palestinians present there were like the people in the middle, you know, the reasonable people, people who could talk to everybody.

Leilani Farha 5:33

Although I don't I don't know anymore about painting Hamas, for example, as being so radical. I mean, is it really radical? They've changed their constitution, so they now accept that Israel must exist. Is it so radical to want your land back? I mean, land.

Fredrik Gertten 5:50

No, no, no. I'm no, but but it's it's radical in the form of uh this kind of Islam that is it's very hard against women and gay people and so on, which we also see in Iran. Which and I I'm really happy to see those kind of religious guys go out in the margin. I really hope for that happens in Iran. I hope it happens in Palestine. So, but then that's another discussion debate. But Iran, it's scary to see what happens, and we you never know how it will end.

Leilani Farha 6:24

Exactly. So we'll just have to be at what cost and for whom you know all these bodies.

Fredrik Gertten 6:31

There are some people shouting out now on social media that oh, where are all these voices who speak for Palestine? Why are they not talking about Iran? And uh, why don't they talk about Sudan?

Leilani Farha 6:44

I think that's I think those are I don't like those arguments. I have to say that. I mean, you can say it the other way, all the people supporting Iran, did they actually support Palestine? Let's not like we have enough divisions between people.

Fredrik Gertten 6:58

I hate that, creating more divisions. I totally agree. And and I'm for the people of Ukraine, I'm for the Palestinian people. I'm for the Iranian people, you know, and the Sudanese and the Congo.

Leilani Farha 7:12

Human rights, equality, justice, international law, which doesn't exist anymore.

Fredrik Gertten 7:19

And women life freedom. Absolutely.

Leilani Farha 7:22

Women life freedom. Okay. I have one word for you. It's a place.

Fredrik Gertten 7:29

You have a place Alabama. Alabama. That's the deep south old slave state. I actually been, I've been to Alabama. It was actually very strange. I met somewhere in Georgia a guy who was organizing black man organizing prison wardens in Alabama. He was a unionizer. So I went with him to I don't remember the town in Alabama, but so I got a little bit of insight into this kind of very tough place. But then, of course, I guess you've seen the film, the documentary The Alabama Solution.

Leilani Farha 8:15

I just watched it. That's why it's on my mind. Yeah.

Fredrik Gertten 8:19

Yeah. And it's it's a film I recommend everybody to see, the Alabama Solution. I think it's out on uh Warner HBO, something like that.

Leilani Farha 8:30

I think it's HBO.

Fredrik Gertten 8:32

And so it's shot inside prisons in Alabama, and it's the inmates making a rebellion, basically. And we follow the rebellion, and and it's uh but it tells another story because it's also about when slavery was being illegal, they kept having legislation that made it easier to lock up black people, they you know, and so people were not allowed to walk around freely because then they could get arrested. And so there is a deep tradition of locking up black people, Afro-Americans. Do you recall the mother, the European Americans? I don't know. But it's uh it tells a story of patterns that never left, and now when you see what is happening with ice, somebody says ice is like the the Gestapo of Trump. But somebody I just saw it somewhere is that you we shouldn't use a European uh reference, right? Ice are the slave patrols, ice are the people who were out looking for slaves on the run. Wow, wow, and this is like the deep tradition, and it was also legal. So slave patrols were legal, it were they they were following a law, and neighbors could call and say, Oh, I there is actually slave running around this neighborhood, and this is exactly what is happening now.

Leilani Farha 10:12

What a history, what a history.

Fredrik Gertten 10:15

It's an extremely violent history of the United States of America, and of course, it doesn't make all of us free of our all of most countries have a dark history, of course, but the Americans um I mean the Germans, what the Germans did after the Nazis and the and and the genocide of Jews and gypsies, uh they actually made the legislation and they really tried to do it differently and to try to change something more in depth. We haven't seen that in the US.

Leilani Farha 10:52

No.

Fredrik Gertten 10:52

And now also when we see that Trump is also taking away all these affirmative action things, and you know, that people of color could get into universities or poor kids or whatever, or Native Americans, all these programs are gone. And if you mention them in an application, your AI will kick you out.

Leilani Farha 11:14

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I watched that the Alabama Solution documentary yesterday and with my daughter who has an interest in criminal justice systems, and I have to say I was completely shocked. I mean, I knew about the corrupt prison system and slave labor and all of that uh to some degree, but it was uh completely harrowing to see the conditions and then to see the attitudes of the re white, mostly white reporters saying things like, Well, they're in prison. What kind of conditions did they expect? Their life shouldn't shouldn't be okay. And I mean, the death rate, suicide rate, uh, drug overdose rate in those prisons in Alabama is off the charts. They're living with rats and vermin and I mean, completely unsanitary conditions, solitary confinement for years and years, like just the idea that some people could rationalize the treatment of other people, even if they and you know, as you say, these are people who are picked up for almost anything.

Fredrik Gertten 12:27

It's a very minor, minor crime.

Leilani Farha 12:29

Like one of the guys, I was actually thinking about this, had gone into an unoccupied building. He did nothing in the building as far as they knew. He hadn't stolen anything. I don't know if he was homeless and living in the unoccupied building or he was just in abandoned building, like a squatter, right? So, and you think, and he was in prison for decades. Yeah. Decades. I mean, and in fact, died in prison.

Fredrik Gertten 12:55

So And they killed him in prison, yeah.

Leilani Farha 12:58

They killed him in prison to silence him, really. Um anyway, a documentary that must be seen. But it got me thinking about Alabama, obviously, and the history, but also it ties in with what we were talking about with Iran. Um, you know, Rosa Parks, very famous Rosa Parks, was from Alabama. And before Rosa Parks, there was a woman actually, well, for those who don't know, Rosa Parks is the woman, the black woman who refused um to move to the back of the bus in times of segregation, racial segregation, and she refused to move to where the blacks, who were called Negroes at the time, were uh supposed to sit. There was, in fact, I learned this morning, a woman before Rosa Parks. And this is interesting. Her name is Claudette Colvin. And she, in fact, was on a bus and was seated and was told that she should give her seat to the only white person on the bus. And she said no. And so she, in fact, was a precursor to Rosa Parks. But it was decided within the movement that she was too black, too dark-skinned, and too poor to be able to drive a movement, a civil rights movement. And so it was Rosa Parks, who was more palatable, who ended up driving the movement. I found that fascinating.

Fredrik Gertten 14:21

Strategies, and you can sometimes you can understand them that, you know, I know when we when I do a documentary, you need a main character to be interesting, work on screen, you know. It's like it's like we have in my film called Push a main character called uh what's her name?

Leilani Farha 14:41

I don't know. A nobody from a nowhere town.

Fredrik Gertten 14:47

Yeah, for exactly. And she made a hell of a difference, didn't she? I mean, so I mean, I could have found somebody really boring from the UN to put in the film, and it would have been a boring film.

Leilani Farha 15:00

Right.

Fredrik Gertten 15:01

So, I mean, maybe it was a a right choice of the movement. I I hope they Yeah.

Leilani Farha 15:06

Just interesting. Just interesting.

Fredrik Gertten 15:09

It's totally interesting. Also, movements have to be strategic and smart sometimes. Yeah.

Leilani Farha 15:14

Yeah. And just one last thing. Going back to the Alabama solution, what those inmates did was incredible. I mean, they went on strike because they run the prison system through their free slave labor. And they went on strike and it was a nonviolent strike for many days, 16, 17 days, something like that. Amazing given that they were living in conditions that really provoked violence, and many of them were violent in the prison to survive. And there they were on strike, arm in arm, non-violent. Just amazing.

Fredrik Gertten 15:54

And I will say also what impresses me, we shouldn't, I shouldn't be impressed by it, but it's also the the high level of uh education amongst these inmates. Really articulate, smart people. Exactly. Uh inspired. I mean, it's also thinking about the the loss of society to lock up so many good people. I mean, so it everybody's losing out when you there is somebody who could contribute to society, exactly is then just kicked out. So it's uh the US is a very sad place on the planet, unfortunately. And this is, I mean, there are the I mean I know the prisons in Iran are not better, so they can compete with Iran and China maybe, but it's if what we call the yeah, Israel. If we could but if we talk about the so-called civilized world, if I don't think that exists, but what they use the US is right right in the bottom, yeah, if in and that's human rights. Agreed. Uh if we talk about documentary, I can mention one more very quickly. It's called The Perfect Neighbor. Uh huh. Uh it's on Netflix and it's uh totally made on with body cams from um policemen in a neighborhood. And it's basically about the gun rights where people can kill each other without a price, especially if you're white and you kill a black person. So that's also have a look, perfect neighbor. Thank you very much, Lilani.

Leilani Farha 17:29

Thanks, Frederick.

Fredrik Gertten 17:30

We talk next week.

Leilani Farha 17:31

Yep.

Fredrik Gertten 17:32

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.

Kirsten McRae 17:42

See you.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.