Q&A WITH TOM EATON

We chat to the opinion writer and political commentator about his hilarious, but sobering, new book on our ‘troubles’, Is It Me or Is It Hot in Here? Plus we share an extract from it

Are we frogs in a boiling pot, or a stressed but resilient nation trying to make sense of bizarre times? Are we being ruled by an African liberation movement or a 14th-century Italian church? In his new book, Is It Me or Is It Getting Hot in Here? Great Expectations and Boiling Frogs in South Africa, columnist and political commentator Tom Eaton looks at these and other uniquely South African preoccupations and dilemmas.

We’ve all heard about the infamous boiled frog experiment. Chuck a frog into a pot of boiling water and he’ll leap back out again. But if you put him in a pot of cool water and heat the water very slowly, he won’t realise the peril he’s in until it’s too late. Ergo: boiled frog. ‘For South Africans, it seems a perfect parable for the experience of living in this anxious, angry, unjust country,’ writes Tom Eaton, ‘where every day the dial is cranked up by another degree with the latest corruption scandal, the latest monstrous crime, the latest depressing, numbing statistic about how our country and economy are fading… Right now always feels normal, no matter how hot it gets.’ It’s a great metaphor. There’s just one catch: it’s not true. A German scientist named Friedrich Leopold Goltz spent his time attempting to boil frogs, but, four years and many frogs later, he succeeded only when he removed their brains.

‘That it still has such a grip on our imaginations and emotions suggests a sobering truth about ourselves: we continue to believe it is true because we want it to be true,’ Tom writes. ‘For a metaphor that is usually invoked as a pragmatic warning to stay alert, to be prepared, to plan for the worst – it is, in fact, a bizarrely masochistic plunge into fatalism.

‘I’m not suggesting that this country isn’t a frightening, violent, confusing, divided place. But it is a glaring and current example of the kind of thinking that can take hold of our imaginations and our fears in the absence of a clearer, more informed national conversation.’

His book, says Tom, is an attempt to look at his own preconceptions more clearly. ‘It’s an exercise in practising how to lower my defences so I might be more open to things as they are, rather than how I think they are.’

You finished the book just before lockdown. Is there anything you would have included or discussed, had you known what was coming?

TE: I might have written a bit faster to finish it before everyone ran out of money and stopped going to bookshops. But in terms of what’s in it, no; I think I covered everything I felt qualified to write about. You’ve written a lot about the ANC. How has your view of them changed?

TE: The big shift is that I no longer think of the ANC as a political party doing a bad job. Instead, I understand that it is an extraction machine doing a very good job. What is the HALTO principle?

TE: In recovery treatment, the HALT principle is a way of staying self-aware and practising self-care by recognising powerful emotional triggers that are sometimes surprisingly difficult to acknowledge or even feel in the moment: Hunger, Anger, Loneliness or Tiredness. I took the liberty of adding an O to represent ‘Online’, as I believe that spending too much time on the internet can tip one over into a highly vulnerable, even self-destructive, state. Just as it is essential to be able to step back and recognise that you are hungry or angry or lonely, I think it’s also important to be able to feel that moment when you’ve spent too long online, and walk away. What are some of the things you do (or have stopped doing) in the name of self-care?

TE: I’ve stopped having earnest, heartfelt arguments with people on Facebook because I have finally understood that Facebook arguments aren’t arguments – they’re performance or a way of self-soothing, or a sadomasochistic ritual, but they’re not about debating or changing minds. You describe Facebook as the Antichrist of thought. Where should people be getting their news?

TE: There is a group of news sources placed more or less in the middle of the political spectrum and squarely near the top end in terms of quality and reliability – AFP, Reuters, perhaps the BBC and, barring a few shockers, The New York Times. A useful rule of thumb is money: if you’re paying for your news, or if your preferred news site is begging you to pay for it, it’s probably fairly reliable. If it’s free, and there’s no attempt to get you to pay, you need to be suspicious of where it’s getting its loot, and who is paying it to influence you. You believe in sustainable corruption.

TE: Whenever I use this term, people think I’m joking, or they’re shocked. Corruption, after all, is not a laughing matter. We all know that it hammers the poor and prevents societies from reaching their full potential. But corruption doesn’t end countries. What ends countries is unsustainable corruption: when politicians and businesspeople steal too much and in effect kill the goose that

‘Corruption exists in every country on the planet, even the ones that have managed to convince us that they are squeaky clean.’

lays the golden egg. In short, what the Zuptas were doing. When South Africans despair about the levels of graft in this country, we often look longingly at countries overseas we believe have managed to ‘stamp out’ corruption. This is wishful thinking born of despondency. Corruption exists in every country on the planet, even the ones that have managed to convince us that they are squeaky clean.

There are, however, degrees of chutzpah and sophistication; this is what I mean by ‘sustainable corruption’. What we need aren’t politicians and businesspeople who steal nothing. What we need are people who understand that there are limits to how much they can steal; how far they can hollow out a country before it all starts coming apart. Why do you describe yourself as a columnist rather than a journalist?

TE: Journalists deal in facts. I write opinions. I like to believe that my opinions are founded in facts and informed by them, but I keep the distinction clear because once we start believing that opinion and journalism are the same thing, you quickly arrive at a point where Fox News helps a hateful conman become president of the US. Your analogy for SA’s ongoing corruption involves a Venter trailer full of cash.

TE: I thought it might be useful to imagine R500 billion in terms of Venter trailers stuffed full of R200 notes. I won’t tell you how many trailers have trundled away so far – it’s in the book – but it’s a lot. What makes you feel hopeful about South Africa?

TE: I think most South Africans want the same things, which means that, despite massive inequality and different beliefs, we have more in common than we know. I also find our collective anger oddly encouraging. Anger, directed at the right things, is healthy and energising. We’d be in much deeper trouble if we were entirely resigned. What is the one thing you hope people take away from your book?

TE: If they are entertained, and learn one new thing, then that’s a pretty good outcome. But I also hope that some of them find a different way to start engaging with the news or arguments that tend to make us so angry and exhausted, perhaps finding some healthy distance or at least a new perspective.