Keepers Of Nationalism - The poverty of tribal, rural hinterlands may be Africa's most despairing problem, but it is in the atmosphere of cities that African leaders tackle the issue. African cities, bustling and impatient, are far away from tribal Africa with its huge and potentially supreme masses. Only 12% of the population between the Sahara Desert and South Africa live in cities. But urban Africa Is vital Africa. The cities are the keepers of nationalism. Their moods create the changes that make headlines and make the new Africa. To understand new Africa, an observer must catch the mood of its cities. Let us catch the mood of three and see three different African ways of adjusting to the modern world...

Niyi Ishola, a 28-year-old government secretary in Nigeria, admires America very much. One of his great heroes, in fact, is the late John Foster Dulles. But Ishola has a complaint. "Soviet cosmonauts Gherman Titov and Yuri Gagarin give a much better impression than your astronaut John Glenn," he says. "Both Russians wear uniforms in their photographs, and the people respect uniforms. Uniforms show discipline. In his pictures," Ishola continues sadly, "Glenn wears a bowtie." John Glenn's bowtie has not stalled America's drive to win friends and respect In Africa. But this tale of a young Nigerian's concern with astronautical polka dots reflects the difficulty of trying to analyze the impact of U.S. policies on Africa. Africans live in a world remote from the world of Americans. Africans worry about farm plots and factory sites, not Castro and Khrushchev, about building a nation, not building an image. American assumptions about what impresses Africans, or what disturbs them, often lack a true base. The difficult problem of American race relations can illustrate this a bit. Many U.S. policymakers assume that the names Little Rock, New Orleans, Oxford do not endear the United Slates to Africa. The assumption, of course, is true. The treatment of Negroes in the United Slates does bother Africans...