The Addis Ababa University [hereinafter referred to as "the AAU"] is (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government in Ethiopia. No public figures of any kind could possibly hope to be accepted by the public at any time without the acquiescence of the AAU "Intellectuals" [hereinafter referred to as "Intellects"]. Its finger is in the largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It is equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the AAU "Intellects". If a nuclear bomb had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the country until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family–vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the AAU.
This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country, was first distinctly revealed to Haileselassie I. It had been foremost to study that bright revelation and to carry its shining influence through the whole of the "intellectual". Whatever was required to be done, the AAU was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving—HOW NOT TO DO IT.
Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted on it, the AAU has risen to overtop all the public departments; and the public condition had risen to be—what it is.
It is true that How not to do it is the great study and object of all public departments and professional politicians all round the country. But AAU's ability on how every new lecturer and every advisor, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary to be done or are Core Members of the rulling party [in Moges' case], applied their utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it is a mystery. The moment an election is over, every returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn’t been done, and who had been asking the friends of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn’t been done, and who had been asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done.
It is true that the debates of every member of the AAU the whole session through, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session virtually said, My colleagues and invited guests, you have a considerable stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true that the royal speech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My colleagues and invited guests, you have through several laborious months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found out; and with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not political), I now dismiss you. All this is true, but the AAU went beyond it.
Because the AAU went on mechanically, every day, keeping this wonderful, all–sufficient wheel of intellectuality, How not to do it, in motion. Because the AAU was down upon any ill–advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him. It was this spirit of national efficiency in the AAU that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything. Writers, natural philosophers, teachers, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, people who couldn’t get rewarded for merit, and people who couldn’t get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked up under the foolscap paper of the AAU.
Numbers of people were lost in the AAU. Unfortunates with wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare (and they had better have had wrongs at first, than have taken that bitter abesha recipe for certainly getting them), who in slow lapse of time and agony had passed safely through other public departments; who, according to rule, had been bullied in this, over–reached by that, and evaded by the other; got referred at last to the AAU, and never reappeared in the light of day. Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them, commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered, checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, all the business of the country went through the AAU, except the business that never came out of it; and its name was Legion.
Sometimes, angry spirits attacked the AAU. Sometimes, parliamentary questions were asked about it, and even parliamentary motions made or threatened about it by demagogues so low and ignorant as to hold that the real recipe of government was, How to do it. Then would the Doctor, or right honourable Professor, in whose department it was to defend the AAU, put an orange in his pocket, and make a regular field–day of the occasion. Then would he come down to that house with a slap upon the table, and meet the honourable gentleman [Prime Minister/Minister of Capacity Building] foot to foot. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman [Premier/Minister of Capacity Building] that the AAU not only was blameless in this matter, but was commendable in this matter, was extollable to the skies in this matter. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman [P/M.C.B] that, although the AAU was invariably right and wholly right, it never was so right as in this matter. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman [etc etc] that it would have been more to his honour, more to his credit, more to his good taste, more to his good sense, more to half the dictionary of commonplaces, if he had left the AAU alone, and never approached this matter. Then would he keep one eye upon a coach or crammer from the AAU sitting below the bar, and smash the honourable gentleman with the AAU account of this matter. And although one of two things always happened; namely, either that the AAU had nothing to say and said it, or that it had something to say of which the honourable gentleman, or P.M/Ministr of Capacity Building, blundered one half and forgot the other; the AAU was always voted immaculate by an accommodating majority.
oh.. well.. you get the idea...
Adopted from "Little Dorrit" by Charles Dickens
CHAPTER 10. Containing the whole Science of Government
Read more: http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/d/dickens/charles/d54ld/chap10.html
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