Category Archives: politics

Off Court, Novak Djoković Takes a Significant Step

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Novak Djoković is the most prominent Serbian citizen who has voiced his support for students who have been leading demonstrations since last November. How many people—at home or abroad—have heard his words?

The Background

Since the November 1, 2024 collapse of a concrete canopy outside the train station in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second city, students have been organizing regular meetings to commemorate the 15 lives lost as well as to call out the corruption they believe is behind the tragic accident. They have made a number of demands of the government, including the release of all documents relevant to the renovation of the train station and a 20% increase in funding for higher education. Universities have not held classes for months and students have organized sit-ins at faculty buildings as well as street protests.

Painted red handprints and the slogan “corruption kills” have become symbols of the protests. (Source: AP Photo by Darko Vojinović)

Though the trigger for the protests—which have spread from Novi Sad and Belgrade to smaller cities and towns across the country—was quite specific, they quickly encompassed broadly-held sentiments: “For the students taking to the streets in their tens of thousands, the Novi Sad tragedy is emblematic of everything they believe is wrong in Serbia: widespread institutional corruption, a lack of accountability, and a technocratic class who are perceived to have risen only due to their ties to Vucic’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party” (Srpska napredna stranka, a.k.a. SNS, in Serbian). The government of President Aleksandar Vučić and his party, who have controlled Serbia for nearly 13 years, is in crisis as the student protests have galvanized citizens from all walks of life. On Friday, there was a general strike that slowed commerce and traffic in the capital to a standstill. And at a 24-hour blockade of one of Belgrade’s key intersections on Monday, students had backup from farmers on tractors, bikers, and white-coated medical staff. Professors, teachers, judges, actors, writers, and other professional and cultural groups have also signaled their support.

Blockade of “Autokomanda,” a key intersection leading into central Belgrade (Source: RFE)
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The protest in photos

Vučić has suggested that the students are being funded by unidentified external actors who want to take down his government by force, and his rhetoric—by turns defensive, dismissive, defiant, and pleading—has likely contributed to acts of violence against the protestors. About two weeks ago, a student was injured when a car plowed through a crowded Belgrade street, an ugly incident that was caught on video; and on Monday, a handful of students in Novi Sad were beaten with baseball bats wielded by men who allegedly emerged from a SNS headquarters. Yesterday, only partly in response to the latter event, Prime Minister Miloš Vučević resigned, as did the mayor of Novi Sad, satisfying one of the students’ demands. With the prime minister’s resignation, the entire cabinet essentially collapses. What happens next is uncertain, although, “according to the Serbian Constitution, if parliament fails to elect a new government within 30 days of the prime minister’s resignation, the president is obliged to dissolve the National Assembly and schedule elections.” While opposition groups have called for the formation of a transitional government “made up of experts approved by the students,” the protestors themselves say they are not interested in “political power but accountability and justice within a corrupt system.” Those who can’t be on the streets and Serbs who reside abroad are refreshing their news feeds, exchanging frequent updates on messaging apps, posting photos of the protests on social media, and generally staying on alert.

Djoković Draws a Line

With a few notable exceptions over the course of his two-decade career, Djoković has generally been reluctant to make statements that his compatriots could perceive as political. (Why this is so is a complicated matter I’ll leave for another time. Anyone who can read Serbian or is willing to make do with an AI translation can consider the points raised here.) But over the last few years, beginning with environmental demonstrations in late 2021, his attitude has gradually changed. In the past month or so, after the student protests began, Djoković has seemed noticeably more willing to use his platform to address topics other than sports. As he told an interviewer last summer, for a cover story in the February issue of GQ magazine, “Tennis is still my biggest megaphone to the world.” This was among the reasons he listed for not yet hanging up his racquets, despite having completed his tennis bucket list with the gold medal in Paris.

On the other side of the world at the Australian Open, Djoković turned his megaphone toward home. After his third-round win over Tomáš Macháč, Novak wrote “for Sonja” and drew a heart on the camera, a dedication that would have come across loud and clear to anyone back home watching tennis and tracking the protests. Speaking with Serbian media, Novak explained the gesture. (The translations throughout are my own.)

It was addressed to Sonja [Ponjavić], who is currently in the hospital. I’m sending her support, and I hope that she recovers as quickly as possible. I was shocked, like everyone else, when I saw the video. I simply can’t believe that these kinds of things happen nowadays. I don’t know what clicks in a man’s head so that he’d do such a thing—to run over another person, not least a young woman, a student. Really. I don’t know what else to add, except, as always, to call for peace and understanding. I’m completely opposed to violence of every kind, and, unfortunately, it seems like there’s more and more of it on the streets. I hope it’ll stop soon.

Though these were his first words on the subject in a press conference, they weren’t Djoković’s first comment on current events in Serbia. In mid-December, he posted that he thinks it’s “important for [young people’s] voice to be heard.” Judging by the response on social media, some Serbs didn’t think he went far enough here, as this diplomatic statement neither mentioned the mass gatherings explicitly nor criticized the government. Given his reference to “educated youth,” however, the “with you” salutation is pretty clearly directed at protesting students.

However, his message from Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena—one of the sport’s biggest stages—was an indication that Serbia’s favorite son had decided to make his statements on the subject more direct. (It’s worth noting that international media did not ask about this act, in stark contrast to the controversy that erupted when he wrote on a camera at Roland Garros in 2023. Since both messages were in Cyrillic, they required some deciphering; but activists on social media were happy to help when the subject was Kosovo and, thus, outrage was easy to generate.) After his fourth-round match, Djoković was asked a follow-up question—once again, in Serbian—related to his message on the camera. Specifically: does he follow the news from back home, or what’s happening around the world, when he’s competing at a tournament?

This time, his reply was much longer, even though he’d been asked a “yes or no” question and everyone in the room would have understood if he wanted to answer briefly and call it a day.

I follow what’s happening in Serbia—not quite everything, but I follow events a lot through social media. I can’t pretend that nothing is happening. . . Even though I’m in Australia, of course I’m upset by things like the situation that happened the other day with Sonja. I hope she recovers quickly and returns home. And that, unfortunately, isn’t the only instance of violence against students and young people. How can I put it? . . . This is a big loss for us as a society—Serbian [society], generally. So, my support is always with young people, and students, and all those to whom the future of our country belongs.

I mean, I can no longer consider myself a young man—I’m somewhere in middle age now—and I would like my children to also grow up in Serbia. I would like for young people from abroad to return to live in Serbia, and to feel that they have a society and an environment which they can enjoy and in which they can develop, and that it’s an environment that actually offers them everything that they need. So, that’s one thing I can say about that; and, of course, I always have been and always will be against violence of any kind. Really, I don’t know. I said this the other day and have nothing to add on that subject.

And in [the rest of] the world, what’s happening with wars, I have no comment on the fact that innocent people are constantly dying—they suffer the most. Honestly, sometimes I think: as an athlete, of course I want people from our country to support me, and I want them to feel, in some way, that what I do has value in their lives. . . . I am trying to be a good ambassador for Serbia in the world, and have been for many years. But, well, when these sorts of things happen, these kinds of tragedies—like Ribnikar or Novi Sad or everything that has happened in the last few years—then truly everything else, including sports and what I’m doing, falls into the shadows. It’s irrelevant compared to human life and to the struggle for some basic rights. That’s all I can tell you.

There is a lot in this statement one could unpack, like the tension Djoković appears to feel between his role as an informal ambassador and any criticism he might wish to make about the state of things in Serbia. But I’ll offer just three interpretations here. First, violence against young people—particularly the mass shooting at a Belgrade elementary school (OOS “Vladislav Ribnikar”) in May 2023—has almost certainly contributed to Novak’s new outspokenness. Second, both his age and his parenthood have shaped his thinking: he wants his kids, now 7 and 10 years old, to “also grow up in Serbia,” like he did, but it’s not certain that they will—not merely because they have the resources to live elsewhere but specifically because Serbia may not provide what they need to thrive. Third, while the exodus from Serbia over recent decades (essentially, since the breakup of Yugoslavia) saddens him, he understands it.

For more on “brain drain” from the Western Balkans, see below.

Research indicates that “young people leave these countries not only because of low salaries and economic issues but also because of corruption, crime, political instability and lack of security.”

To put this last point in context, I turn to Radio Free Europe: “For young Serbs, staying in their homeland is not easy, despite their love for their country. Youth unemployment is high, and many young people feel there is no other option than to find work abroad. According to a 2019 UNDP report, ‘Serbia is among the world’s 10 fastest-shrinking populations due to its low birth rates, high out-migration, and low immigration.'” These comments suggest that Djoković has a lot on his mind, including how he can best contribute to a brighter future for not only the children in his family but also the nation’s youth, more broadly. The work of his foundation, which focuses on early childhood education and has also been offering parenting workshops of late, is already making a difference. But is there more he could be doing? (I hasten to add that this is less my question than one I gather Novak is asking himself.)

Meanwhile, Back in Belgrade

What happened next may surprise and even shock some of you, though, unfortunately, it’s standard operating procedure in Vučić’s Serbia. That is: most regime-affiliated media didn’t report on Novak’s comments—not even those outlets which had sent journalists to Melbourne to cover his Australian Open campaign. They didn’t show his message to Sonja and they didn’t publish his lengthy follow-up observations, which were among the most revealing he’s ever made about contemporary Serbian society. Unlike the mostly-anonymous protestors—whom Vučić, other members of his party, and the media they control feel free to demonize—Novak Djoković is both a well-known figure and a wildly popular one. He also has a direct line for communicating with millions of people, irrespective of whether he’s giving an official press conference. Like the 20-somethings leading the protests, Djoković is accustomed to self-publishing when he feels the need: “The students haven’t just grown up with Vucic; they’ve also grown up with the Internet. Their flair for digital innovation and social media has enabled them to bypass state-controlled media and spread their message far and wide.” So, it isn’t easy to keep what he’s saying from his fellow citizens.

According to Freedom House, Serbia is the only country in Europe other than Russia experiencing a major downward trend in terms of political rights and civil liberties, with the SNS “putting pressure on independent media, the political opposition, and civil society organizations.”

Nevertheless, members of the SNS are trying—through outright media control as well as the sort of “radical self-censorship” that has become common under Vučić’s increasingly authoritarian rule—to limit the reach of Novak’s voice. (Click these links if you want to learn about Vučić’s formative experience as the Minister of Information in the final, desperate years of Slobodan Milošević’s regime or about challenges to press freedom in Serbia.) A colleague, whom I won’t identify out of an abundance of caution, confirmed to me that he didn’t submit Novak’s protest comments because, simply, “Nothing of the sort gets published” by his SNS-controlled employer. Journalists working for such outlets are aware which subjects are forbidden and don’t even try to post these stories, as they know higher-ups will delete the material and they’ll likely lose their job.

Because Djoković made these comments in Serbian, they also didn’t get picked up by international media at the Australian Open. For this to happen, one of the Serbian reporters on site would have had to translate (and somehow circulate) Novak’s statement while also working on deadline to produce multiple articles a day. In any case, his comments weren’t sports-related; so, it’s doubtful any of the tennis beat reporters would have been able to do much with them. Thus, between the suppression of these comments at home and the lack of coverage abroad, it’s unlikely word of them has spread very far.

Acknowledgment

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that today’s New York Times features an article that mentions Djokoviċ in this context, the first I’ve seen in international coverage of the protests.

Serbia is a small country, with a population smaller than New York City’s, and most people in the world are unfamiliar with it. Unless there’s a natural disaster, heightened tension with Kosovo, or the Serbian men’s basketball team is threatening to upset the Americans at the Olympics, it’s not often in the international news—not since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, that is.

Sidebar

Out of curiosity, I looked on Google Trends to see whether Djoković got more global attention when he won the gold medal in Paris last summer or when he was detained and deported by the Australian government. The results were as I expected: there was far more interest in the January 2022 controversy than in any of his major titles. The five next-highest peaks (visible in the second slide) were during Wimbledon 2023, Roland Garros 2021, the 2024 Olympic Games, Wimbledon 2021, and Wimbledon 2019.

  • Seasons 2005-2024
  • Seasons 2018-present
  • Google Trends explanation

Still, what’s going on in Serbia right now is a big deal for the region. Something like this hasn’t happened for nearly a quarter-century. And the fact that the most recognizable Serb in the world went out on a limb to say something about it—and the Serbian government doesn’t want its own citizens to know—is arguably of much more significance than his having to pull out of a semifinal match at the Australian Open due to injury. Hopefully, Novak’s torn adductor muscle will be healed by the time the clay season rolls around, if not before. When—and how—the current crisis in Serbia will end is much less certain.

Postscript

On Friday, 31 January, Djoković made his first public appearance in Belgrade since returning from Australia a few days prior. At a basketball game between Belgrade rivals Crvena Zvezda and Partizan, he and his wife both sported custom-made sweatshirts expressing their support for students. (The phrase is a riff on the “dreamers are champions” theme from the collaboration between French designer Millinsky and Novak’s foundation.) In the video below, a reporter asks Novak to explain the meaning for those who don’t speak English, to which he replies, “They know—they know very well.” The media coverage of the game combined with a short statement in English more or less guarantees that this message, unlike the ones I discuss above, will be understood around the globe.

Yugoslavia 101

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When was the last time you needed to look back decades—or even a century—to understand something that happened at a tennis tournament or other sporting event? If the answer is “never,” you’re surely not alone. But if you’ve ever tried to follow a regional controversy or grasp the relationship between sports and nationalism in the Balkans, it’s likely you’ve come across references to conflicts from long ago and the shadow they not infrequently cast over the present-day occupants of the region as well as the ex-Yugoslav diaspora.

I put together this post so that readers of my other essays will have at least some knowledge of the complicated history of the region known, in the 20th century, as Yugoslavia (literally, “land of the south Slavs”). Suffice it to say, this is no substitute for reading work by specialists, some of whose books I recommend below. It is, however, a start.

1) Slavic tribes migrated to southeastern Europe starting in the 6th century CE. From late antiquity, through the medieval and early modern periods, and right up to the end of the 19th century, this region was both part of vast empires (e.g., the Roman Empire) and made up of smaller provinces, principalities, republics, and kingdoms. Beyond the arrival of the Slavs, there are two key historic developments I think are worth highlighting here. First, the Great Schism: the split between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in 1054 (though even before this, the region was divided between the “Greek East” and “Latin West” spheres of influence). Second, the rise of the Ottoman Empire: specifically, incursions into and conquest of much of southeastern Europe, beginning in the mid-14th century.

The territorial evolution of the Eastern Roman Empire (via Wikimedia Commons).

For several centuries, the territory of what would become Yugoslavia after World War I was contested between the Habsburg (later, Austrian and Austro-Hungarian) and Ottoman empires, with portions of what are now Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia part of a “military frontier” providing a buffer between the Ottomans and central Europe. It was also the site of regional resistance to imperial rule by the local Slavic populations. While Montenegro and Serbia gained independence in 1878 (following the tenth Russo-Turkish War and the Congress of Berlin), various Balkan conflicts continued until the eve of the Great War. Given all of the above, the population of this region is quite diverse: in addition to the south Slavic majority (which extends to Bulgaria), there are minorities of Albanian, Austrian, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Roma, Romanian, and Turkish descent. Needless to say, there are people from the former Yugoslavia whose ancestry includes a mix of the aforementioned ethnic groups; likewise, there were many Yugoslav marriages between members of the Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim, &/or Jewish faiths.

2) What we now refer to as “the former Yugoslavia” was, in fact, two separate historical entities: from 1918-1941, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (previously, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), a parliamentary constitutional monarchy; and from 1945-1992, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), led by Josip Broz “Tito” from the end of WWII until his death in 1980. The latter federation had the same basic external border as the former kingdom and included six constituent republics of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Macedonia, plus two autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo, within Serbia.

3) During WWII, something akin to a civil war took place within what had been the Kingdom of Yugoslavia; so, the fight wasn’t simply between Axis and Allied forces or German occupying armies and Yugoslav resistance fighters. Instead, there were multiple groups who were clashing for ideological &/or sectarian reasons. When the Royal Yugoslav Army surrendered to the Germans shortly after the Axis invasion in April 1941, the king and military leadership went into exile and many men of fighting age took up arms with other groups: namely, the Četniks (Serbian nationalist and royalist militias), Partisans (the multi-ethnic military arm of the communist party, to whom the Allies turned once the former group of rebels proved unreliable), and Ustaše (the Croatian fascist movement). While the Ustaše led a German and Italian puppet regime (the so-called Independent State of Croatia) and enacted a south-Slavic version of the “final solution,” the Četniks were a motley force of Serbian guerrillas who resisted or collaborated with the Axis powers more opportunistically, depending on both local circumstances and long-term goals. Yugoslavs may have joined forces depending on ethnicity, region, ideology, principle, pragmatism, &/or pressure, with some changing sides at different points in the war, including when given amnesty by the Partisans in the late stages of the conflict.

Axis occupation and partition of Yugoslavia in World War II (via Wikimedia Commons).

After the Allied victory and the subsequent formation of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945, both Ustaša and Četnik members faced reprisals under Tito’s leadership. The communist party’s principle of Yugoslav “brotherhood and unity” was reflected in the federal constitution and meant to promote both the peaceful coexistence of different ethnic groups and interdependence among the constituent republics. (The main highway across Yugoslavia, the first section of which was opened in 1950, was even named for this policy.)

4) Post-war Yugoslavia, despite being a socialist country, did not belong to the Eastern Bloc. Following the Tito-Stalin split in 1948, Yugoslavia made its own way (albeit with economic and military support from the US, especially in the early years of the Cold War). Declining to join NATO in 1953 or sign the Warsaw Pact in 1955, Tito played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement. Generally, Yugoslavia was a more open (i.e., liberal) society than the countries behind the “Iron Curtain.”

5) Following Tito’s death and ensuing political and economic crises, Yugoslavia broke apart in the early 1990s. Between June 1991 and March 1992, four of the six constituent republics—Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia—declared independence from the SFRY, leaving Serbia and Montenegro as “rump” Yugoslavia. (The latter entity, called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1992-2003 and the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro from 2003-06, lasted another 14 years.)

The breakup of Yugoslavia (via Wikimedia Commons).

The dissolution of Yugoslavia and establishment of successor states was a protracted and painful process which included several distinct wars: a 10-day conflict between the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) and the Territorial Defense of Slovenia in 1991; the far longer and bloodier hostilities in Croatia and Bosnia, which lasted until late 1995; and the Kosovo war, which started as a years-long attempt by Serbian police to put down an insurgency by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and culminated in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Although Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, the status of the territory remains unresolved. The United Nations maintains an “interim administration” in Kosovo, cooperating with local leadership as well as a number of other international organizations (including the EU and NATO).

In 1993, the UN established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague (Netherlands) to investigate and prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. All told, the ICTY indicted 161 individuals for crimes committed in the region between 1991-2001. When the ICTY was dissolved in 2017, other national and international judicial bodies continued its work. For example, as I write this, a trial of several former KLA leaders is under way.

Tennis fans should care about some or all of the above only if their interest in the sport extends beyond the rectangle that is the court. Some people watch tennis to escape from the real world—and that’s alright! But if you’re one of those fans who gets invested in a player and wants to better understand his/her background, the history of Yugoslavia may help. And, I hasten to add, this history isn’t merely relevant to Novak Djoković. Before anyone in the international tennis world even knew his name, there were four grand slam singles champions from the former Yugoslavia: Mima Jaušovec, Monika Seleš, Iva Majoli, and Goran Ivanišević. The last two decades have yielded a remarkable crop of players from the region, all of whom were affected, in one way or another, by the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Beyond that, there’s the old adage “knowledge is power.” The more you know about this history, the less likely you are to be confused, misled, or even manipulated by poor reporting or propaganda. Sports journalists often oversimplify these background stories or off-court incidents because, well, they’re on deadline and it’s not their job to cover history or politics. But there are also those—on social media, especially—who are operating in bad faith or from a place of ignorance &/or ideological investment. Their versions of events can thus be inaccurate, incomplete, or slanted for any number of reasons (including clout-chasing and trolling). So, I’d encourage anyone who encounters a controversial claim about a current player tied to the dark chapters of the Yugoslav past to verify the facts, research or seek out experts who can help provide the relevant context, and hold off on judgment.

Selected Reading List:
This list includes both scholarly and journalistic work. Generally, I prefer to rely on academic experts; but I acknowledge that their published work, often addressed to other specialists, can be dense and dry. Nevertheless, I’d urge caution with regard to journalistic coverage of both the history and politics of the region, especially the books produced in the midst of the 1990s conflicts. A similar warning applies to the Wikipedia entries for any of the aforementioned topics: although they are often good starting points, they can also contain revisionist history influenced by the ethnic nationalism that is sadly widespread in the Yugoslav successor states.

Catherine Baker, The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s (2015)

John V.A. Fine, Jr., The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century (1983) and The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest (1987)

Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (2003)

Misha Glenny, The Balkans, 1804-2012: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers (2012)

Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (3rd edition 2009)

John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There was a Country (2nd edition 2000)

Sabrina P. Ramet, Thinking about Yugoslavia: Scholarly Debates about the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo (2005)

Laura Silber and Alan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (1997); accompanying BBC documentary series

Srdjan, Serbian Nationalism, & the Uses of Information

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Despite the title, this isn’t really a post about Srdjan Djoković. Like various others during the second week of the Australian Open, I’m using the father of the top men’s player in the world to get your attention. Unlike many of them, I’m doing so for what I hope is an edifying purpose. Namely, I want to unpack a widely-reported incident that took place outside Rod Laver Arena last month in order to make distinctions between different types of information. In the second part of the post, I’ll offer an interpretation of the varieties of fan sentiment, ethnic pride, nationalist iconography, &/or political ideology that were expressed on the tournament grounds after the quarterfinal match between Novak Djoković and Andrey Rublev.

Part 1

First, the facts: Following complaints by spectators during a first-round match between Kateryna Baindl (UKR) and Kamilla Rakhimova (RUS), as well as a demand from the Ukrainian ambassador to Australia, Tennis Australia belatedly introduced a ban on Russian and Belarusian flags. Over the course of the subsequent 12 days, they added more flags, banners, and symbols to the prohibited list in order to cast a wider net for potentially-provocative displays by attendees.

Though there may have been others who managed to sneak in flags here and there (and we know that security ejected unruly spectators for a variety of reasons throughout the fortnight), it wasn’t until the middle of the second week that there was a news-making incident involving about six men waving Russian (and related) flags and chanting pro-Putin slogans on the steps leading from the two main show-courts into Garden Square.

Map of Melbourne Park, with Garden Square at center, courtesy Tennis Australia

The timeline: Djoković’s on-court interview ended around 10:00pm; shortly thereafter, Novak fans began to assemble on the steps, as they had after each of his wins. Though at least one of the aforementioned men is visible in the background of my videos and photos of the festivities, it wasn’t until the significantly larger group began to disperse, at approximately 10:30, that these men briefly took center stage.

A few minutes prior to that, some of the men in question had stopped Srdjan Djoković for a picture as he was leaving the fan gathering. As can be seen in the photo below, the main culprit is not only holding a flag emblazoned with Vladimir Putin’s face but also wearing a t-shirt with a “Z” symbol over the Night Wolves logo. (I’ll discuss the significance of these accoutrements in Part 2.)

Srdjan Djoković poses with fans & other attendees as AO security looks on (photo credit: Miodrag Dimitrijević of Nova)

Within minutes, event security confronted the men and escorted them from the site, where they were questioned by Victoria Police.

For the record: while I spent some time observing the celebration, and walked past Srdjan and his entourage on my way from the media center to the steps, I left the area 5-10 minutes before things got ugly. So, unfortunately, I’m not in a position to say whether people were dispersing organically or began leaving due to these men’s disruptive behavior. (I do know, however, that some fans wishing to say hello to Novak’s father turned away when they saw these men approaching him.)

In the background: An ethnic Russian activist named Semyon Boikov, who also goes by the name “Aussie Cossack,” had encouraged his social-media followers to “retaliate” against Tennis Australia for what he called their “discrimination,” “racism,” and “attack on honor and dignity” in banning various Russian flags. The very day TA announced the ban, Boikov offered a cash reward to anyone who succeeded in displaying a pro-Russian symbol during a televised match and provided a helpful list of all matches featuring Russian players. Subsequently, he congratulated attendees who had managed to evade the ban, before specifically suggesting the Djoković-Rublev quarterfinal as a high-profile opportunity to do so. In all, Boikov—who has some 161,000 YouTube subscribers, solicits volunteers, and raises money off his content—published twenty-two posts and videos about Russian flags at the Australian Open on his channel over a two-week period.

Assessment: Clearly, the Tennis Australia flag policy and the security measures in place to implement it weren’t enough to stop people determined to bring banned items into Melbourne Park. In fairness, though, it’s pretty tough to thoroughly search the bags—and bodies—of each of the tens of thousands of people coming through the gates every day; and AO security had the additional challenge of distinguishing between similar-looking Russian (🇷🇺) and Serbian (🇷🇸) flags. In a few cases, members of the security team were over-zealous with flag-draped fans there to support Djoković; in a handful of other cases, they missed people who, I think it’s safe to say, had ulterior motives for coming to the tournament on the day(s) they did. All things considered, my main criticism of the AO is that their security staff didn’t act sooner to remove these men. But, even so, my criticism is qualified, as there may have been other factors contributing to their decision, such as waiting for police back-up or prioritizing the safety of the larger crowd by delaying action in order to minimize chances of people getting hurt should any violence erupt as they attempted to detain the men.

Afterwards: In the interest of transparency, I’ll confess that I jumped to conclusions when I first saw the headlines about Srdjan Djoković. Anyone who has followed Novak’s career knows that the father has often been a public-relations liability to the son; and I’ve followed it more closely than most—not least, because I speak Serbian. So, I reacted to the photo a colleague sent our Serbian media group chat late Wednesday night by rolling my eyes. The next day, I reacted to the flurry of tweets I saw when I first checked Twitter like a lot of other people did: by making a judgment without clicking the accompanying links and reading the articles, never mind watching the video “evidence” and evaluating its source. And I did this despite having more contextual information at my disposal than most people, not less. So, this whole episode was a salutary reminder for me, too: slow down; take a breath; read the article; check the source; try to keep your confirmation bias at bay; and consider what else you know or where you can look for more information. Also: since no one needs to tweet (ever), there’s no professional obligation or journalistic value in tweeting about an event before you have the facts straight.

In terms of the way this incident was covered in the first 24-36 hours, I’d suggest readers look at when stories were published or broadcast, which outlets published or broadcast them first (and which waited on details), whether they were published online only or also in print (the editorial standards for the latter are generally higher), what sorts of reporting they were based on, and how they were framed. Five things, in particular, stand out to me:

  • Many stories were published too soon after the incident to allow for much reporting (e.g., verification, interviews, & research) or even fact-checking.
  • The main character of the stories shifted very quickly from a group of disruptive men tossed from Melbourne Park to Novak’s father.
  • None of the articles that I read or news segments that I watched quoted eyewitness accounts (by the journalists themselves or spectators who had observed the events in question).
  • Many of the reports highlighted an inaccurate translation based on a questionable quotation of what Srdjan Djoković said to the men, often in the headline or subhed.
  • The primary source for most stories, other than a Tennis Australia press release, was a video created by the culprits themselves, which included misleading edits, descriptions, and subtitles provided by the “Aussie Cossack” channel.

As a result, stories presented a mix of accurate information (Srdjan did indeed pose for a picture with two of these men), misinformation (the misquotation and inaccurate translation), and speculation (e.g., attempts to interpret the deeper meaning of Djoković senior’s behavior based on an incomplete &/or inadequate grasp of the facts). On top of that, the stories also—albeit inadvertently—spread disinformation by amplifying a propaganda video made to manipulate viewers and advocate specific ideological and policy positions.

To expand on the disinformation point: even if one didn’t witness the scene that night or have enough information at hand to be able to spot the inaccuracies in the video posted by “Aussie Cossack,” one can make some inferences by viewing it in context. Specifically, who filmed the two parts of the incident: 1) the “photo” of Srdjan with two supposed Novak fans that abruptly (and presumably without explanation to Djoković senior) morphed into a video greeting to Alexander Zaldostanov; and 2) the group unfurling Russian flags and cheering Putin on the steps? Though The Guardian’s Tumaini Carayol happened to catch these guys in the latter act, they certainly weren’t leaving it to chance. Why were their short clips then featured in a longer video (set to patriotic Serbian music!) produced for social-media consumption? What can be gleaned about these fellows from a) what they were wearing, holding, and saying; b) the YouTube channel to which they submitted their cell-phone videos; &/or c) a simple Google search for either Boikov himself or the Night Wolves motorcycle “club”?

An aside: the initial media cycle lasted less than a day before it moved on to stories about reactions to the incident—interestingly, more to Srdjan Djoković himself than to the flag-ban-evading, political-statement-making culprits. If you’re interested in journalism, I’d recommend reading a post by NYU professor Jay Rosen about “scoops.” Rosen opens by observing that “Journalists tend to be obsessed with scoops, meaning: the first to break the news, and being seen as the first, which means getting credit for it among peers. But not all scoops,” he continues, “are created equal.” I’ll leave it to others to determine what kind of “scoop” the Srdjan story was—and how well the initial reports held up.

Jay Rosen, “Four Types of Scoops”

Answering only part of the last question: Boikov is someone with a substantial record of both pro-Russian activism in Australia, where he was born, and propagandistic videos and appearances on Russian television. Additionally, Boikov has stated, “We never felt ourselves to be Australian, we were aliens there. I consider myself to be a Russian.” He is not, to put it mildly, a reliable source. In fact, he has made his “Aussie Cossack” group’s motives quite clear in interviews: “We’ll always support the policies of the [Russian] state, we respect very much our Commander-in-Chief, Putin. And we have a unique capacity to support Russia from within a hostile state. Even the FSB or a battalion of the Russian SAS can’t achieve that, because unlike them we are citizens of this state.” Enough said. Why journalists would take what Boikov says on any subject at face value is beyond me.

To make matters worse: while most of Boikov’s videos have below 50 thousand views, the much-embedded, linked, and shared video about the “bold political statement” Srdjan Djoković supposedly made now has 181 thousand views. By every measure imaginable, this was a propaganda win for “Aussie Cossack” and his allies—not because his content is the work of a sophisticated genius but because so few media outlets could resist the lure of a controversy that could be tied to Djoković.

More to follow…

Djoković v Australia: Timeline

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Below, you’ll find a timeline that provides both background information and key events of the Novak Djoković Australian visa debacle of 2022. In many cases, I’ve linked photos, news articles, court filings, government publications, and the like to help detail what happened. Whenever possible, I opted for a primary source rather than media reports or commentary. The twelve days in January that Djoković was en route to or in Australia generated countless articles, columns, editorials, tv segments, blog posts, YouTube videos, podcast episodes, and tweets—on top of producing pages and pages of legal documents. Suffice it to say, I’ve found the latter files most useful in compiling a factual record.

Note: I consider Novak’s travel in the 2-3 months prior to his trip to Australia part of the relevant background information, particularly as covid testing protocols remained in place both at tournaments and at international borders in late 2021. Australia was the first country to which the professional tennis tour had traveled since its resumption from hiatus in August 2020 where covid vaccination was required for entry. No previous ATP, WTA, or ITF events had mandated players or their team members be vaccinated, though some had required attendees to show proof of vaccination before entering (e.g., the 2021 US Open). In fact, these public-health policies were generally set by host cities, states, or countries rather than the tournaments themselves. Further, as we witnessed during the 2021 Australian Open (where players, teams, & officials were able to enter the country despite the border being closed to non-residents) and the 2021 French Open (where a curfew was lifted to allow spectators to remain in the stands at Roland Garros for the duration of the semifinal between Djoković and Nadal), governments were willing to bend their rules &/or make exceptions to assist these sporting events in going forward.

2021

2022

Although I have linked many legal documents above, there are even more. The complete court files (including hearing videos) are here:

You Are Not Alone

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This blog is almost exclusively a repository for my tennis-related thoughts.  But, occasionally, something beyond the tour inspires me (is that the right word?) to put words on virtual paper and share them with more than a few intimates.  Election 2016, in general, and the results of the presidential contest, in particular, is one such thing.

In the wake of November 8th, are people you know trying to defend the Trump voters among their friends, relatives, coworkers, &/or acquaintances?  Does that frustrate you (or make you angry, sad, or another stronger—even darker—emotion)?  You are not alone.

In replying to a friend of a friend on Facebook, I ended up writing something that might be useful to others who find themselves in a similar predicament in the coming days, weeks, and months (I can’t handle thinking longer-term than that right now).  That is: trying to respond to someone nice & polite & reasonable who says something along the lines of, “I would not classify myself as a ‘Trump Supporter,’ but I would say I am becoming increasingly sympathetic to those who voted for Trump and are now being unfairly labeled or judged.”  My reaction has two parts: an acknowledgment of what I think are legitimate concerns and a rejoinder to an often-implicit argument that I don’t find in the least compelling.

First, it is of course unfair to lump all of Trump voters together into one basket and label it “deplorable.” Doing so was one of the biggest mistakes, if not the biggest, HRC made in the general-election campaign and it came back to bite her—hard. There’s no doubt in my mind that that comment unified & strengthened the resolve of those who already supported Trump, pushed some undecideds his way, and gave both his team and conservative media a political club with which to bash her for the final two months of the election.  Rhetorically, strategically, and perhaps even ethically, it was a bad move.

However, I don’t think it’s unfair to judge Trump voters in the following way: they themselves may not be racist, antisemitic, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, Islamophobic, &/or xenophobic—in a word, bigots.  But the election results indicate they are willing (on some level) to tolerate a lot of deeply troubling, offensive, & even threatening words & actions from both Trump himself and a not insignificant segment of his supporters.  Whom one gets “in bed” with politically isn’t irrelevant.  What sorts of things one is willing to overlook, qualify, play down, or explain away because it makes it easier to justify voting for someone—or feel less bad about doing so—matters. I’m guessing (or maybe it’d be more accurate to say “hoping”) that there are many millions who voted for Trump despite all the horrible things he said—despite the indications of what kind of person he is, despite his lack of discipline, despite ample evidence that he does not bring out the best in his fellow man—not because of them.  Maybe a lot of Trump voters held their noses and voted for him anyway, hoping that the mainstream media (and his biographers) were exaggerating his flaws and painting the behavior of his less-savory supporters with a colorful brush.  Maybe these people (I’ve seen some suggesting as much) genuinely believe that he’s the lesser of two evils, will bring needed change, and can fulfill some of the economic promises he’s made.  Maybe they believe all the Fox News stories about the Clintons and take as given that they (& their “corruption”) are truly different in kind, rather than degree, from other politicians.  Maybe they were expressing frustration with “business as usual” in Washington and are hoping an “outsider” like Trump will disrupt all of that—and then, out of the chaos he creates, something better will emerge.  I can easily imagine that being the case for lots of people.  But it still doesn’t excuse the fact that they decided those reasons for voting for Trump were more important than all the risks he so obviously brings with him.

My hunch is that those who were able to see Trump for what he is, be bothered by it in some way, & and vote for him anyway are mostly, if not entirely, white people who are insulated from the dangers he represents.  That, to me, is a problem.  We might even call it by a name that I know some in conservative circles scoff at: white privilege.  So, I do indeed judge them for what they have—through their votes—deemed to be tolerable, especially since they’re not going to be the ones doing the “tolerating.”  That burden will fall on black & brown people, on Muslims & Jews, on Sikhs (because people are ignorant and think turban = terrorist), on members of the LGBT community, and, yes, on women.  As a woman, as a friend to many in the aforementioned groups, and as a person with an active moral imagination, I judge Trump voters for putting their fellow Americans at risk on the gamble—because let’s be very clear, it is a gamble—that some economic or political good may come of his presidency.  That’s a bet I don’t think was worth making—and I particularly judge college-educated voters with annual incomes over $75K for making it.  I think it’s a deeply selfish decision.

On Syria & Serbia: Some Thoughts on US Interventions

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There’s something—or a few things—I’ve been wanting to say for a while about US interventions abroad.  But because I was already headed to the US Open when things took a turn for the worse in Syria, I didn’t say them because it seemed odd to intermingle tweets about tennis with thoughts on foreign policy.  Since things have slowed down a bit in New York, though, I’ve collected a few thoughts.  Really, they’re questions and concerns.

If you’ve been following the debates over what the US should or shouldn’t do in Syria, you may have noticed that “Kosovo” keeps getting invoked.  Given that, it seemed worthwhile to share this handful of pieces, most of which explicitly compare the intervention in “Kosovo” with plans for similar action in Syria.  I put “Kosovo” in quotation marks to emphasize one thing only: the fact that NATO’s 1999 intervention in the Balkans is known by an inaccurate shorthand.  The target of the bombings was not strictly the (still-disputed) territory of Kosovo, but Serbia itself—then the largest republic of what remained of Yugoslavia.  While I understand the need for a convenient abbreviation for common use, this inaccuracy also irks me because I think it obscures the actual—which is to say, broader—effects of that military action.

I have several motivations for sharing these articles.  First, I’m a fan of information— seeking, considering, and disseminating it.  Second, I think it’s useful to have a historical perspective when considering political decisions, perhaps especially military ones.  Over the past two and a half decades, the US & its NATO allies have been involved in any number of conflicts across the globe.  To my mind, the degree to which the interventions in the Balkans shaped subsequent foreign policy (in Iraq, especially) has been insufficiently explored and understood by the general public.  So, particularly when trying to figure out what we could or should do in Syria, it seems useful to go back and look at other interventions that were also presented to the public as “strategic” or “limited” in scope.  Questions we might ask include: What went right?  What went wrong?  How similar are these two situations?  What are the key differences?  What can we learn from our previous actions?  What are the short- and long-term aims of the current or proposed mission?  And, perhaps most importantly, what happened in those other places we intervened after the military action was (supposedly) successfully concluded?  (Americans over a certain age remember George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” celebration—and how laughable it seemed weeks, months, and years later, when our troops were still fighting in Iraq.)

Third (and related to the last question above), even though I have no idea what anyone should do about Syria, I am very, very skeptical of claims that Operation Allied Force is the “gold standard” for interventions, humanitarian or otherwise, as one of these articles states.  Or, if it is the gold standard, I think that should worry all of us.  The reason I feel this way is quite simple (and doesn’t have anything to do with, say, the legality of that operation): it’s been fourteen years since NATO intervened in the former Yugoslavia and the situation in Kosovo remains both unresolved and fairly dire, politically and economically.

Bottom line: these conflicts don’t end when we stop bombing or when headlines about them cease appearing above the fold in the New York Times.  We simply have to think long-term, no matter how painful or seemingly unbearable the short-term suffering is.  And we (meaning the US and its allies) have to learn something not only from “Kosovo” but also from Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  Years—even decades—later, none of these places is a model of stability, despite our best efforts.  Could they have been worse without our military involvement?  Perhaps.  Might they have been better?  We can’t know.

I’ve tried to present a range of views here, from Clinton administration insiders to academic specialists on the region, from Buzzfeed to Foreign Policy magazine.  Those who follow me on Twitter or know me personally are likely aware of both my ties to Serbia and my commitment to reasoned analysis.  While I can’t claim to be neutral, I do try to be fair.  The pieces below are presented in chronological order, with the oldest (from 2008, when Kosovo declared independence) first.  If anyone has a recommendation, I’d gratefully add more articles to the list.

“Welcome to Kosovo, the Next Failed State?” (Washington Post Op-Ed)

“NATO Strikes Over Kosovo Continue to Divide, 10 Years On” (DW)

“The Folly of Protection” (Foreign Affairs)

“Kosovo Offers United States a Roadmap for Syria” (Washington Post editorial)

“Five Inconvenient Truths about Kosovo” (TransConflict)

“Is Syria Anything Like Kosovo?” (Foreign Policy)

“Syria Is Not Kosovo, Balkan Veterans Say” (Buzzfeed)

“Wesley Clark: Syria vs. Kosovo” (USA Today)

“Kosovo is the Model For U.S. War With Syria, Forget about. . . Iraq” (PolicyMic)

“Intervention Lessons from Kosovo for Syria” (Huffington Post)

“Syria Is Not Kosovo” (New York Times Op-Ed)

Those with more time or interest in the subject might check out an essay collection such as Reflections on the Balkan Wars: Ten Years After the Break-up of Yugoslavia.

Novak Djoković and the Burden of Serbia

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English: Novak Djokovic was interviewed after ...

Novak Djoković after winning a mixed doubles match with Ana Ivanović in the 2011 Hopman Cup (Photo credit: Wikipedia).

Preface:
This essay was written over several days last week, in response to a new-media dustup that followed a tweet by Sports Illustrated writer Jon Wertheim: “Have been debating whether to tweet this, but here comes quite an indictment of #djokovic http://tinyurl.com/l46nnbg; happy to link a rebuttal.”

My response to Wertheim began its life as a tweet, grew into a note, and graduated as a long letter, which I sent to him over e-mail.  Though there are a variety of reasons I chose him, rather than the blogger, as my primary—my first, if not my most important—interlocutor, I’ll name just one: these issues are contentious enough without making them personal.  No individual is responsible for creating the messy political situation that still exists in the Balkans; and no individual is alone in having incomplete, uninformed, &/or problematic views on the subject.  To me, this is not a time for the type of debate in which the main goal is to score points—to win—rather than to work, collectively, toward understanding.  Neither I nor the original blogger, Jon Wertheim, anyone reading this, or Novak Djoković himself is in a position to single-handedly solve a problem as complex as the conflict over Kosovo’s independence.  Together, however, there are a few things we can do—and keep doing.  Those include thinking, reading, writing, sharing our views, and engaging in civilized (and, yes, I use that word advisedly) conversation with others.

First and foremost, then, I am interested in dialogue.  However, this priority doesn’t mean that I’m not making an argument here.  Rather, it’s meant to emphasize my firm belief that there’s a big difference between making an argument and having one.  And, to the extent that I am writing to make an argument (and not to have one with either Wertheim or any individual blogger), part of my point is about argument itself.  Who’s already guessed that I’m a teacher?  Come on, raise your hands. . .  Good.  I’ll make a point of toasting you the next time I have something other than Earl Grey in my cup.

To give credit where credit is due, I want to acknowledge some of my own teachers.  To that end, I’ve scattered a handful of references to true experts on the subjects I discuss here.  Also, I should note that my views on writing have taken shape over approximately 30 years of being—alternately and simultaneously—a student and teacher, a reader and writer.  One huge influence on my thinking about both writing and the teaching of writing was Greg Colomb, director of the Writing Program at the University of Virginia, who sadly passed away a few months ago.  If anyone is looking for a great book on the subject, I would highly recommend his and Joseph Williams’ The Craft of Argument (of which there are several editions).

On the off, off chance that it’s not obvious merely from the number of words here, let me make it so: I take both the form and the content of this argument very seriously.  This is not only—or even mostly—because I take myself seriously.  Of course, I do that, too: it’s an occupational hazard of being a professor, I’m afraid.  (Though I’m also glad to laugh at myself: for instance, at the fact that I haven’t showered or changed out of my bathrobe for three days because I’ve been too busy writing this.)  I take what I’m saying here seriously because this is a very, very difficult subject about which to have substantive discussion.  Here’s another thing that likely goes without saying: while I certainly don’t expect anyone to read this entire piece or to take it as seriously as I do (other than my family, who loves me!), I hope that anyone who decides to read and comment will keep the sensitivity of the issues we’re discussing in mind.

Given this sensitivity, I want to put the following caveat up front: I am no apologist for a single one of the many horrific crimes committed—by any group—in the former Yugoslavia or the current Republic of Serbia over the past two decades.  There is no denying that these things happened and no number of apologies that could undo their damage after the fact (which is not to say that no one should make apologies).  Nor, because I am half-Serbian, do I feel any particular need or desire to defend or diminish criminal, unethical, or even morally & politically ambiguous acts by any Serb—any more than I would, because I am a US citizen by birth, defend an act by my own government or a group of Americans which I not only disagreed with but also found destabilizing of my faith in humanity.  (If you doubt this, I’d be glad to send you video footage of the fights that took place in my parents’ home during the 1990s.  Actually, and perhaps unfortunately for my current purposes, no such documentation exists.  But if you’re still uncertain about whether to take my word that plenty of Serbs had and have disagreements on these issues, I invite you to attend a dinner party in virtually any home in the Yugoslav diaspora, to raise the issue in a Belgrade café, or, indeed, to read the article linked at the very end of this missive.)  Thus, what follows should by no means be taken as an attempt to defend Novak Djoković from legitimate criticism.  Everyone is open to that; nobody is free from the consequences of his or her words or deeds.  But not everyone—in fact, not a single Serb—is as clearly in the public eye, and as obvious a target of criticism, as is Djoković.  For that reason, and even though I don’t believe for a second that this debate is really about the world’s top-ranked tennis player, I will begin by acknowledging and responding to one of the blogger’s central claims about him.
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