Word Food: Upside Down & Soft Power

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:

Upside Down: a critical look into the chaos of politics around the world and an appeal for politicians to speak up – against Trump and for their people and country.

Soft Power: a conversation about the importance of culture and how oppressing and controlling its critical and free spirit takes away from its power.

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. It's your time.

Leilani Farha 0:28

Fredrik, I'm gonna give you a word. Are you ready? It's actually two words often said together, and I'm gonna say them together.

Fredrik Gertten 0:40

Upside down. Upside down. That's like disco, isn't it?

Leilani Farha 0:48

Exactly.

Fredrik Gertten 0:49

That's a classical disco song. Yeah, now we we should kind of put it on.

Leilani Farha 0:54

Yeah. Yeah, maybe, maybe Sebastian can, our sound technician, can pump in some upside down. Who is it? Is it Diana Ross?

Fredrik Gertten 1:04

No, it's uh oh shit. No, I.

Leilani Farha 1:08

You talk I'll look.

Fredrik Gertten 1:10

You look, yeah. Upside down. I mean, that that's the feeling that we have about what's happening on the planet right now, that everything is upside down. It's it's organized in a way that we don't want it to be. Everything that we value is under attack, and everything that they value is like lifted up, which is then greed and violence and pure brutal power, because that's what they say. If you have power, you that's the that's the law of the planet that the most powerful win. And it's not about uh human rights law or international law or you know the this kind of global community built up around the UN declarations and so on. So it's it is upside down. And how do we turn it around? And of course, this is something we can all talk about, but uh and I'm still waiting for, let's say, a European politician or a leader from, you know, could be Canada, or could be uh, you know, to take the lead. But people are hesitant because Trump is so, you know, we have we need to please him at least with words. And then of course I'm certain that all these leaders, everybody sits and talks between each other, say, okay, how are we going to handle this guy who's turning everything upside down? But they they still haven't found a way to communicate it. And when they don't, he's winning.

Leilani Farha 2:47

Yeah.

Fredrik Gertten 2:48

I think that's that's the problem because we we need to speak out in one voice, a lot of nations, a lot of people, and that could be uh, you know, left and right, whatever. It doesn't really matter because now when he's stomping around, even right-wing Europeans are feeling okay, this is too much, you know. You know, you can imagine being a very right-wing Dane right now when they are asking for Greenland.

Leilani Farha 3:17

Right.

Fredrik Gertten 3:17

I heard a Danish conservative politician on TV the other day said, if he takes Greenland, we are at war. That's fierce language, you know. But still, I'm waiting for that leadership to happen.

Leilani Farha 3:33

I think we've seen a little bit of it of right side up talk from Ma'am Danny in New York, who is speaking plainly, not just about the needs of New Yorkers, although he's so very good at that. And he introduced yesterday, I think, uh, or recently, um, subsidized child care for workers in New York. He is addressing the unaffordability of housing. Um, he's uh trying to create a city that people can live in, not just a city where people want to live, which is amazing.

Fredrik Gertten 4:12

And also supporting small-scale businesses, the mom and pop businesses. Yeah. Also really I mean, normally you don't hear the left talking about small business, but I think that's I think that's really cool.

Leilani Farha 4:26

Yeah. Yeah. So he when I hear him, I feel like, okay, like, and I and as I said, not just about New York stuff. I mean, he weighed in on what's happening in Minneapolis around ice uh and just spoke truth and said, I don't need an investigation to know murder when I see it. Boom. Right. So it it's interesting, and it's interesting to see how Trump deals with Mam Danny. He hasn't written him off, he hasn't attacked him since the election. Uh quite the opposite. I mean, that meeting in the Oval Office, where I mean, it was like Trump was fawning over Mam Danny. I mean, it was quite strange. So I think, like you, I've been waiting. Like, where's the leadership? Especially from Europe. Like, where is the leadership? And I think they're all so timid. And I I actually think people should be willing to lose something. All of us should be willing to lose something, to do what's right, to say what's right, to embrace morals, to embrace human rights. I mean, we're not going to be in a better world. We'll never be in a better world if we just keep selling out morality.

Fredrik Gertten 5:43

Yeah. I must say that I'm really impressed by the Mexican president. Scheinbaum. Scheinbaum. She keeps a very straight line all the time. And also I saw that now when Venezuela is cut off, Mexico sent oil to Cuba. You know? I didn't know that. You take it for what it is, but I mean they do it because they can, and they they don't want the US to decide everything. I think that's that's cool. And of course, the the Mexicans has a very deep reason for their anti-Americanism, because of course Mexico was basically a third of the country was stolen, yeah, you know, 150 years ago. And this is like in the deep memory of Mexico. I mean, I mean, Texas and so on, you know, Texas was Mexican territory that they invited immigrants so they could build the economy, and then these immigrants kind of ran away and became a part of the US, and then on and on, and then they after that they also took California and so on. Yeah, so it's it's um they they know the Mexicans know deeply what is happening now in Greenland, Venezuela, you name it. Um so and and I think it's cool. One other cool thing with Shane Bond, what is she said the other day that she should give more money to Mexican film, you know? Suddenly, you know, culture which is under attack in so many places, she's there.

Leilani Farha 7:15

Excellent, excellent. And on the cultural front, I will say this about the word or words upside down. There is a very Palestinian dish called makluba, which it actually means upside down, as I understand it. And it's a dish that you make in a big pot, and you put vegetables or meats, if you eat meat, on the bottom, and then you put rice and more vegetables and more rice, and you cook it. And then when you serve it, you have to flip the pot over and you lift it up, and you should end up with a beautifully formed rice vegetable meat compilation.

Fredrik Gertten 7:58

I that's what I see my Palestinians friends post on Instagram. Exactly.

Leilani Farha 8:03

I happened to make that dish, makluba, uh, on October the 8th, 2023, just by chance. I had no idea October 7th was going to happen. I had long planned it. It was a special occasion, my mother's birthday and a long weekend, and I made this upside down dish. Little did I know that we were starting the beginning in a very upfront and center way of upside down world. A metaphor. Okay.

Fredrik Gertten 8:34

Upside down. Discount. Do you want me to shoot you some words?

Leilani Farha 8:38

And it is Diana Ross.

Fredrik Gertten 8:40

Diana Ross. Good.

Leilani Farha 8:41

It is Diana Ross. There we go. Upside down. Um a word. Soft power. Soft power. Oh. Is that a term? A term of art? Huh. I like that idea. Um I actually don't know what it means, but I assume it's a very important thing.

Fredrik Gertten 9:02

But if you come yeah, compare it with uh the power of the gun, for example.

Leilani Farha 9:08

Right. So, like you know, thousands of people protesting without violence on the street. Is that a soft power? Like what's happening in Iran that's been happening around the world about Palestine? Is that soft power? Or is it about leadership?

Fredrik Gertten 9:24

Actually, there is a new book out called Soft Power. Okay. Uh it's probably also out in Canada and the US and the UK. It was actually out in also in Japan, but it's uh a Swedish writer called Martin Jellion. He was the correspondent in New York for many years, and now he lives in Paris because he couldn't stand living in the US anymore. But it's basically the power of culture. For example, the US have had a very strong soft power also, not only because of the guns and the military, also because of its culture. So even when you know, when they were bomb bombarding Vietnam or, you know, being brutal imperialists, people still love the US because of the resistance, you know, because of all the music, and that's kind of that was like the soft power of the US. And he walks through a lot of uh countries uh around how how the cultural is kind of also sending out the message. But what is happening now is that many nations, especially the US, is kicking down, you know, hunting down culture and taking over the institutions and so on. So actually attacking the soft power of them, their own nation, which is now happening that the US is losing a lot of its good reputation right now. And where do you see the most investments in culture right now? Saudi Arabia is building like hundreds of art institutions, you know. Really? Dubai, yes, museums, art museums, art festivals, you know, and Dubai and Qatar and all this, there is billions after billions into architecture, that the all the top architects are building stuff there. What they're doing, they're building a cultural label, but without including what is the heart of culture, which is also freedom of speech, you know. Let all the voices out, you know, the chaos of culture, the the right to dream, because culture is also the right to dream about the better world, you know, and that is of course then oppressed in in countries like uh Saudi and Qatar and Dubai. But but then we have European powers like France, for example, who still invest lots in culture. So it but the most positive stories of soft power in the recent years is South Korea.

Leilani Farha 12:03

Absolutely.

Fredrik Gertten 12:05

A lot of the most successful art coming out from Korea is also critical. You know, the film Parasite, it's very much about what we did in Korea, you know, it's about the horrible housing situation and an unfair society. But the state of South Korea is also uh supporting the distribution of this story out to the world, and that makes Korea now into a cultural giant in this time.

Leilani Farha 12:36

Huge. I mean, and of course, Korean culture, it's critical, but also very joyful. The music, the K-pop, etc., that's all being exported, so many movies, comedies coming out of um South Korea as well.

Fredrik Gertten 12:52

And then have a look a bit at the north of Korea, China, who are invested millions after millions after billions into this Silk Road project, cultural stories, and they are not successful.

Leilani Farha 13:07

Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm interested in this soft power. I as you know, Frederick, I'm writing a book and I'm nearing the final chapter. And so the book is, of course, about humanity and the relationship between humanity and home and the way in which humanity is weaponized by Wall Street and other actors and governments and banks and that ecosystem. Um, so the final chapter, that's all very heavy, very heavy stuff. So I need, you know, the final chapter to be, I want it to be full of joy and possibility, and people will want me to come up with solutions. And I'm not one for solutions. I I don't know that I want to have a, you know, here's the top 10 things we can do. Um, I might do that in a cheeky kind of way, but what I do think I'm interested in is the power of art and culture and and the need for artists to be front and center in the struggles. It's not the need, they are front and center in the struggles that we're engaged in right now. And in my experience, the people who are speaking most truth and most powerfully will put Mam Danny aside, although he has, you know, behind him an artist. Yeah, his partner is an artist. But putting him aside, the people speaking the most truth and being the most courageous are artists, writers, documentary filmmakers, um, sculptors, painters. I mean, the things I've seen emerge in the last two and a half years in particular is just amazing. Poets, I how could I forget poets? Um, so so I'm gonna read the book you've suggested, Soft Power, and see if there's something there.

Fredrik Gertten 15:00

I think we should uh when we start to have guests again, I would like to invite the the writer.

Leilani Farha 15:05

Absolutely. Soon, soon, I'm almost finished my book. We can have guests again.

Fredrik Gertten 15:10

So a soft power by Martin Jelin, G-E-I-L-I-N. G-E-L I N. Yeah. We can Google it. You can soft power look it up. It's out in in uh, I think 30 countries and so on, so you should be able to find it. It's it's uh something we should keep talking about. That when we now invest so much in weapons, we need to talk about what we want to defend, you know. Otherwise, it's no point, you know. So, we what we want to defend is of course the culture, you know, and the people, and and then um that because that's the whole point of of uh of democracy. So don't divest culture, invest in culture, because that's also resistance.

Leilani Farha 15:59

That's a nice place to end.

Fredrik Gertten 16:01

It is soft power. So a soft um goodbye to you, Lilani. We'll talk soon again. We will. Thank you very much. Thanks, Frederick. Thanks, 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 16:22

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