One night in steaming, gamboling Lagos, a young Nigerian poet leaned forward and whispered, "Nigeria is made up of a caste of corruption on the top and a caste of grumblers on the bottom." A friend joined in. "The grumblers are angry." "No," the poet disagreed. "They are not angry yet. They still have too much." These words caught the mood of a generation in Africa. Almost every new nation in Africa has a strident class of educated men in their twenties and thirties muttering about corruption in high places, impatient with the pace of government, incensed at the lingering trappings of colonialism, embittered, frustrated, ready to claw at their government. Yet, for the most part, while they mutter and curse they never do more. For one thing, they are strapped by a paradox...

related Stanley Meisler articles by topic: