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“Worth a read?” is not your ordinary book review; it is a meta-review. In other words, it provides an overview of the opinions contained in a variety of book reviews published in the media at large. This week’s meta-review is of “God is Back: How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World”, written by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. The book was released in South Africa in April 2010.

The decision by the World Bank to grant a loan of US$3.75 billion to Eskom to build one of the world’s largest coal-fired power stations shows that the bank has confidence in the future of South Africa, and that it further believes the country will nonetheless be able to meet its Copenhagen climate change commitments. This, however, is not the end of the controversies surrounding the loan.

Last week, we published an article on the history of the controversial song, “Kill the Boer” which is presently at the top of the ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema’s hit list – that is “hit” as in "popular". This week, Dale T. McKinley warns about a “much longer and consistent pattern of selective interpretation and manipulative presentation of struggle history by the ANC itself”.

As the defiant insistence continues to sing or chant slogans born during a time of conflict and derogatory, racist and vengeful commentary by self-appointed spokespersons of the right wing spill over into a flood of open hate speech on social media networks and comment strings on articles on the Web, a retired professional security analyst recalls chilling memories from Rwanda.

In a bygone era, there was inevitability about proceedings when South African viewers sat back in their Lazyboys to watch the performance of the Bulls, the Sharks, the Stormers, the Lions and the Cheetahs in the Antipodes. Springbok coaches bemoaned the lack of success of South African teams in New Zealand. Victories by the Boks and the Super 14 teams were celebrated because they hardly occurred.

Against a backdrop of violent crime, growing racial tensions, xenophobia, sexual and gender violence, and increasingly violent service delivery protests, another form of violence and thuggery has crept almost unnoticed into the fabric of South African society – unruly protest actions by students on tertiary education campuses. Opinions about the reasons differ, but most agree that the problem is growing.

The past tumultuous fortnight has seen South Africa move to the brink and back in developments featuring two of its more controversial characters at opposite ends of the political spectrum: ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema and the late Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) leader, Eugene Terre’Blanche. The country seems to have survived quite well the first crisis moment –Terre’Blanche’s funeral – but a long and likely protracted drama around the trial of his alleged young murderers still lies ahead.

There were no glowing reviews of South Africa’s training camp in Brazil, and Bafana Bafana has some way to go before its opening match of the World Cup against Mexico at Soccer City on 11 June. Coach Carlos Alberto Parreira admitted afterward that the glass was only half full and he has nine weeks in which to fill it, and hopes his 'cup' will overflow with joy after the first round of the World Cup.