Ahok Used Finding Nemo As Part Of His Blasphemy Defense

For years people have said Disney films are full of secret messages, most of them focused on sex. Few could have imagined that one of those films would find a new meaning in Jakarta's ongoing blasphemy trial.

In what might be the oddest blasphemy defense in history, Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok, cited Nemo from the popular disney film Finding Nemoto help explain his not guilty plea to judges at todays hearing.

While watching Finding Nemo with a kindergarten class who visited a City Council meeting a couple of months back, Ahok stumbled upon the perfect allegory to his life, a cartoon fish named Nemo.

After the film, kindergarteners asked Ahok why he seemed to enjoy making enemies. He ordered an unpopular series of evictions, battled corruption, and trash talked his political opponents. Ahok told the children he was just trying to uphold truth and do the right thing as governor of Jakarta.

At his plea hearing today, Ahok said that speech he gave on Thousand Islands about the Quranic verse of Al Maidah: 51 was just an attempt at revealing the truth. The infamous speech has been called blasphemous by some, while others have said he was trying to tell people not to let others use the Quran for political gain.

The acting governor compared his speech on the verse to the end of Finding Nemo, when Nemo and his dad were trying to save hundreds of fish trapped in a fishermen's net. Nemo tells the other fish to swim deeper in order to free themselves, but nobody listened.

"Nemo knew, Nemo asked them to swim deeper, but did they listen? No, they didn't at first," said Ahok at his hearing as quoted in Kompas.com.

Nemo then lead by example, diving down and pushing other fish to follow him. When they were finally free, Nemo passed out from exhaustion. "When they were free, did anybody thank Nemo who just passed out? No," said Ahok.

"So that's just what we have to do. Even if we have to swim against the stream, against everyone else, we have to stay strong. Not everyone is honest, and that's just a fact, but we owe it to ourselves to be honest. Perhaps nobody thanks us for that, and that's okay, because it's God who will return our good deeds, not humans," he told a packed courtroom.

So far, Ahok probably won't face jail in his blasphemy trial. The prosecutors charged him with Criminal Code 156, instead of the more serious 156A, which would have required some amount of jail-time. Unless the prosecution's minds are changed by his unique argument, Ahok will be most likely be sentenced on May 9 to two years of probation with the possibility of a year in jail if he commits any crimes during probation.