What is the Old New Land? Where is the Old New Land? We have no idea what it is or where to look or where we'll find it, but the material who, the how and the whither, the warp and weft, the length width depth and time, the dwelling foundations splendor and even eternity, are mere surface on the face of the deep. The Old New Land is the space between space, where exists possibility, plane, history, law, condition, and infinity; glory, law, lovingkindness, the sources of wisdom, and the crown of creation itself. If it exists at all, and of that existence there shall always be doubt, then it abides in that apogee of maximal cosmic tension to which we all arrive in the instant before the great celestial snap, a place of the world of no end that by wrestling to realize, we seem to bring tiny emanations down to our own, if only for a specific and small indeed finite time, if only in a specific and small indeed definite place. It is that land that within all actions seem motivated by greatness, and much in that brief instant even by goodness, for from that unboundedness of spheres above, we carry those best selves which comprise our share of the divine creation. Once we see it, we work, and we work, and we work, and we wait, and we wait, and we wait, but we're always thrown out of the Old New Land.
(Begin with a clip of the last minute from Elgar's March of the Mugal Emperors)
(Scene 1: 1901 - The commandant's office in a South African prison camp during the Boer War. The Commander's Office, should have the noise of a grandfather clock, tea cups and sipping.)
1. Commander Hastings: an officer of the British empire who is clearly part of the gentry who talks with a stiff upper lip - you should be able to hear the twittering mustache in his voice.
2. Simon Charlap: a new British soldier in the camp: Jewish and trying desperately to conceal his identity, speaks with a mild Yiddish 'heccent' he is clearly trying and failing to conceal, feels like a gefilte fish out of water)
Commander Hastings:
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
(takes sip of tea..., puts the cup down on the saucer)
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem, (put emphasis on Jerusalem, as though to indicate that the Commander knows Charlap is Jewish...)
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
(turns page of paper....) ....Charlap eh chap?... You seem to have a mild Polish accent but that's a Portuguese name, how did that happen?
Simon Charlap: (with Yiddish accent) I wouldn't know. It's the name my father gave me.
Hastings: (reassuringly) The Empire accepts all. Whomever you were, Mr. Charlap, you're a British subject now: civilisation, duty, freedom; ordinary decent respect, dear boy that is the English way, ...was the Queen's way, the Empire's way.
Charlap: It's why I've come here.
Hastings: 'ts'a shame you weren't out in the Empire when she was alive, ..."wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set."
Charlap: I'd heard many stories. Read the news.
Hastings: How I envy and worry for those among you just beginning. When I began in '74 I was like them that dream. If you haven't yet Mr. Charlap you'll see very quickly that the world is a squalid, debased place, but we were its shining beacon. We've made ourselves rich and glorious, but we kept our ordinary decency and civilisation, and through all those temptations we brought millions of lives out of agony into the light.
Charlap: That's what it always seemed.
Hastings: Roads, schools, medicine, farming, sanitation, order, peace.... (sigh) It's not like that now... this horrid war, decades of barbarians make their impact upon us, and we begin to resemble them as they resemble us. But that's a small price, and soldiers like you who truly work are the glory of the Empire, and those whom you assist will always be grateful.
Charlap: I look forward to it sir.
Hastings: These bloody Boers, they're winning Charlap. They're not like us. They enslave the Africans and put them in the mines, call them Niggers and Kaffirs in the streets before they beat them, one in five dies in Johannesburg every year, one in five! Can you imagine? ... a million savages are Shakespeare and Wordsworth compared to any one Boer.
Charlap: They do sound horrible.
Hastings: Once they die Johannesburg brings in more Africans and the next year claims another one in five. That's why our victory is so important dear boy! Not just for Africa, not just for the Empire, for the world!
Charlap: I understand sir.
Hastings: We should have listened to Stanley and taken the Congo before Leopold and we could have prevented that Belgian horror, but Disraeli, our great hero, betrayed us all, betrayed the cause, betrayed everything we worked for everything our confreres slaved for everything they died for....
(awkward silence)
Charlap: He does seem rather deceitful... sir...
Hastings: Maybe they were right about him....
(another awkward silence)
Charlap: It's quite abominable sir.
Hastings: Dear boy,... I'll tell you exactly why England is the greatest nation in the world. We are the greatest nation in the world because we evolve, we acknowledge our errors and work bloody hard to reform them. Those Belgian simians, they still preserve the old ways as though it's 1780 with the technology of 1900. But we, the English, are the nation who banned the old practices, while the Americans and Russians were still profiting from slavery fifty years after we renounced the horror, and dear boy, look at us, we still beat them.
(Charlap anticipates the silence this time)
Charlap: It does speak to how good the Empire is.
Hastings: Precisely old chap. And all the more reason we must fight to right the wrongs we so perpetrated. The world needs our Empire to thrive my friend, whenever left to its own devices, the world collapses: war, death, pestilence. From generation to generation, millions upon millions, like a yesterday that quickly passes. It needs an overseer to right its wrongs, and that overseer is you, Corporal.
Charlap: It's all I've wanted sir.
Hastings: It's a matter of will dear boy. The Boers want to win more badly than we do because they fight for their land, but this is our land! That's what so many our men don't understand. Do you understand Corporal?
Charlap: (understanding he's being challenged) Yessir!
Hastings: The world needs for it all to be our land, from Cape Town to Cairo and all that dwelleth within. Britania rules the waves dear boy but never has it ruled the land. Britania needs land, and she requires of us the same will of a Boer to rule it.
(pause)
Charlap: ...Yessir.
Hastings: It is imperative that every one of our men understand that the British Empire must win this war and every war thereafter. Do you understand Corporal?
Charlap: Yes sir. I certainly do.
Hastings: Good chap. (beat) ...Polish you said?
(awkward pause)
Charlap: ...Yes?...
(uncomfortable pause)
Hastings: You wouldn't have happened read anything by Conrad?
Charlap: Who?
Hastings: You can read English?...
Charlap: (slightly offended) Of course!
Hastings: In my possession is Joe's newest volume, ...book called Lord Jim, ...copy given me by the author over a wee dram at Boodle's. Capital fellow!
Charlap: I see.... (doesn't see)
Hastings: He's Polish, you understand...
Charlap: I see... (doesn't see)
Hastings: Seems to be his third language, English, ...writes like an Englishman but you can't make heads or tails of his speech...
Charlap: I see... (doesn't see)
Hastings: Take the volume down, seventh book on the right of the third shelf down.
(Charlap immediately walks over and takes the book down)
Hastings: Please, read it, come back in a week and we'll speak of it.... CLARKSON!
(door opens office noises of people shouting with British accents, typewriters, telegraphs, and closes)
Hastings: (with impatient air of authority) At ease. This is Corporal Simon Charlap, Charlap this is Sgt. Major Nigel Clarkson. Clarkson you are to show Charlap around the camp and tell him what's what.
Dlamini: Niggie means niece.
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