I am the father of two daughters who were born in 2001 and 2003, and I lost track of how many times I watched the movie Finding Nemo with them, but let’s just say that is was probably more than ten times over the course of more than a few years. It was definitely the “go to” movie for our daughters for any long car trip as well. 

If you watched Finding Nemo, you may remember some of the main characters: Marlin, Coral, and Nemo – a family of clown fish living in the Great Barrier Reef; Dory (a Blue Tang fish); Bruce (a Great White Shark); and Crush and Squirt (a father/son sea turtle duo). 

At the beginning of the film Nemo’s mom Coral is tragically killed by a barracuda, and Marlin is left to raise his son Nemo on his own. Marlin is understandably very protective (actually overprotective) of his son, especially given the fact that Nemo’s ability to swim is affected by one fin being smaller than the other, but in spite of Marlin’s best and sometimes neurotic efforts to keep Nemo safe, Nemo is captured by human scuba divers and finds himself trapped in the fish tank of a dentist in Sydney, Australia. 

Against all odds, Marlin is determined to find the only family that he has left, and he gains the help of Dory, a Blue Tang Fish with a memory shorter than the duration of a traffic light and whose mantra in life is “keep swimming;” Bruce, a great white shark, who luckily for Marlin and Dori has recently decided to become vegan whose mantra is “fish are friends, not food;” and Crush and Squirt, a dynamic and very hip father and son sea turtle duo who help them surf the currents to get closer to where Nemo might be. After many harrowing adventures, Marlin is miraculously reunited with his son Nemo who was able to escape the fish tank and find his way back into the ocean. 

Seconds after Marlin has his joyous reunion with his son, Dory gets caught in a fishing net along with a school of grouper fish, and it appears that the story could end with the tragic loss of Dory being hauled up by a fishing boat to almost certain death, but Nemo has a plan for saving Dory and the grouper fish, but it entails getting in the net with Dory and the groupers to encourage them all to swim down together. 

Nemo’s dad at first refuses to allow Nemo to risk his life by getting in the net with Dory and the groupers, but Nemo convinces his dad that because he is the only one small enough to get inside the net, that this is the only way to save Dory. So Marlin relents, and Nemo gets inside the net to encourage all of the fish inside to swim down together. 

It is almost too late, as the top of the net is reaching the surface with many fish, including Dory, being exposed to the air, flopping and gasping for breath; but just when it seems all is lost, the force of the fish all swimming down to together begins to make the net makes its way back into the water (Dory gets the school of groupers to say her mantra together – “Keep Swimming, Keep Swimming”) and the net slowly descends deeper and deeper into the ocean, until the force of their swimming together breaks the pulley system on the fishing ship, and the net and the fish inside crash down on the bottom of the ocean, freeing all of the fish to the great shock of the fishers on the ship who had never seen such resistance before. 

Nemo is knocked unconscious by the force of the fish hitting the sea floor, but he survives, and he and his dad and Dory have gained their freedom together and can make their way back to the relative safety of the coral reef that is their home. 

I think we can find wisdom from Finding Nemo on the importance of collaboration for our current situation as we swim down together to break the net of fascism and make our way to the open waters of freedom and beloved community. Right now we are all caught in the net of American fascism, and we are being lifted rather quickly out of the sea of democracy and freedom. There is a temptation to swim in many different directions to escape danger, but this actually makes it easier for the net of fascism to lift us all up from from the sea of democracy and freedom. The only way to save ourselves is to swim down together and not to swim in the directions that make it easier for American fascism to keep us in its net. 

I will illustrate this with some examples from the world of Higher Education: American fascism is attempting to capture colleges and universities in its net and lift them out of the see of academic freedom. This should come as no surprise given that truth and knowledge have always been a threat to the agenda of fascism. Through threats and defunding, American fascism coerced some schools like Columbia University to begin swimming in a direction that would make it easier to capture more colleges and universities in the net. The plan to capture institutions of higher eduction in the net of American fascism was working, until Harvard University said “No, we we are going to swim in the opposite direction. we are going to swim away from fascism!” 

And guess what? When Harvard began swimming down away from fascism, other colleges and universities took note, and they began swimming down away from fascism together – even Columbia University began to find its spine and reverse course, perhaps finally realizing that capitulation in the net of American fascism would eventually lead the university to be gutted like all of the fish who cannot make their way out of the net. 

The example of Harvard led many other schools to swim down together. Many of the presidents of these institutions have signed the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ (AAC&U) statement “A Call for Constructive Engagement,” condemning the federal overreach and attempts to control higher education though defunding and other threats. There are 646 signatures as of this writing. 

With the assistance of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP),  faculty from colleges and universities are also swimming down together, and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is also working with higher education to file lawsuits to swim down together and break the net of American fascism. 

We need persons and communities of courage in other sectors of our society to also swim down together.

We need unions and workers to swim down together against the oligarchy and economic injustice and to keep swimming! 

We need lawyers and law firms to swim down together and resist being extorted by American fascism and to keep swimming! 

We need judges who care about the Constitution and their oath to uphold it to swim down together against the anti-constitutional actions of American fascism and to keep swimming! 

We need artists whose freedom of expression and creative freedom are under attack to swim down together and to use their art to defend freedom and democracy and to keep swimming! 

We need religious groups and nonprofits to swim down together against Christian nationalism and to be in solidarity with the most vulnerable persons in our communities and to keep swimming! 

We need persons who care about the well-being of all persons and about the well-being of the community of all creation, who care about love, justice, freedom and democracy to swim down together and to keep swimming to break the net of American fascism! 

Like the fish at the top of the net being pulled out of the water, our democracy is gasping for life right now. We are flailing around and swimming around in every direction, looking for ways to escape; but the way out lies in our togetherness, it lies in our community, it lies in our solidarity, it lies in finding the courage to swim down together to break the deeply evil grasp that American fascism has on our people. 

We cannot sit back, we cannot lie low, we cannot obey unjust laws, we cannot be silent because silence in the face of evil is complicity. As the Nobel Peace Laureate Maria Ressa reminds us, we must draw the line, hold the line, and collaborate (see Ressa’s How to Stand Up to a Dictator), and we do this, as Timothy Snyder reminds us, for the sake of a freedom that is not simply the absence of evil, but the presence of good (see Snyder’s On Freedom). We must keep swimming in the opposite direction of hate and fear and swim towards the love and justice of beloved community. Keep swimming! Keep swimming!

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