Patriotism in Jimmy's Hall and A Dancer in the Dust

"Are you waving the flag at me?" 
--Richard Widmark in Samuel Fuller's Pick-Up on South Street, 1956

"You wave the flag with one hand and pick pockets with the other."
--Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946, written by Ben Hecht)

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
--Ben Johnson


It is certainly understandable why one would be cynical about patriotism in today's political climate, but Ken Loach's movie  Jimmy's Hall (2015) and Thomas H. Cook's novel A Dancer in the Dust
 (The Mysterious Press, 2014) demonstrate the positive qualities of patriotism, in the right time and circumstances.  Loach has been making politically conscious movies since the 60's and his films have always centered on people and communities, with the political elements underneath or in the background. The film opens with a black-and-white New York during the Depression, as Jimmy leaves to see his ailing mother in Ireland, living in a lovely green valley in a remote town.  Once he returns to Ireland he is encouraged to open his dance hall, that has fallen into disrepair  He does so and plays jazz brought from America.  This arouses the ire of the local Catholic priest, who reads out loud in church those who have been going to the dance hall, which also functions as a school and community center.  Jimmy and his friends fight back against the church and the local fascists and eventually Jimmy is arrested and deported back to America.  Jimmy loves Ireland and the people there but the English and the Church do not love him.  The film is about many things, one of them being the ability to love the good things in one's country while fighting against intolerance and oppression.

Thomas Cook's novel A Dancer in the Dust examines some of the same themes, including an unrequited love, but from the perspective of a white person in an African country.  Ray Campbell, an aid worker in Lubanda, falls in love with Martine Aubert and cannot understand why a white woman would want to continue working her farm in an African country, even if it is her homeland.  Martine just wants the aid workers to leave Lubanda alone and let it continue to survive on its own.  The misunderstanding on both sides has tragic consequences and twenty years later Ray returns to Lubanda.  "For though we may get a second chance to make back the money we squandered, we rarely get the chance, however inadequately, to address a wrong, much less one done long ago, in a distant land, to one who never knew we did it, nor would ever know."