Not Djoking Around
The problem with Novak's pro-Serbia statements isn't that they're "political."
Dear readers,
We’ve written a fair bit about Novak Djokovic over the years — see here, here, and here — mostly in the context of the international brouhaha over his refusal to get the Covid vaccine. Ahead of the start of the French Open this week, though, Novak has managed to stir up a controversy that had nothing to do with the jab.
So, once again, our main story is about tennis’s most infamous anti-hero — and, more importantly, about the people who allow his bullshit to go unchecked year after year. Cheers!
-Ian and Calder
In the midst of steamrolling his first three opponents at Roland Garros this week, Novak Djokovic managed to insert himself into the middle of another international controversy. It’s almost like he enjoys the extra attention.
After defeating the American Aleksandar Kovacevic in the first round of the French Open on Monday, Djokovic grabbed a Sharpie and scrawled a message in Serbian on a nearby camera lens: “Kosovo is at the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence.” It’s not uncommon for players to write on camera lenses, but these hand-written messages are generally pretty anodyne: “Let’s go!” or “<3”. Djokovic, meanwhile, decided to use his celebration to stoke ethnic tensions in the Balkans.
The political situation in Novak’s native region is fairly complex. Kosovo is an independent country made up primarily of ethnic Albanians, save for a few cities that are majority Serbian and Orthodox Christian. In 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, but the Serbian government maintains its claim to the territory — a claim that Djokovic, a Serbian, elevated in his post-match comments to the press, in which he referred to Kosovo as “our hearthstone, our stronghold.”
Djockovic’s statements come at a particularly tense moment in Kosovo. Earlier this year, ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo boycotted local elections, and this week, they took to the street to stop ethnically-Albanian officials (who were elected with less than 4 percent of voters turning out to vote) from assuming office. Violent skirmishes ensued, and NATO has dispatched additional peacekeepers to the region to attempt to quell the unrest.
Enter Novak, wielding his Sharpie. On the one hand, Djokovic’s statements aren’t that far out there. (After all, they reflect the official position of the Serbian government.) But at least from the perspective of the United States, a majority of the United Nations member states, and the 33 members of NATO who recognize Kosovo’s independence, they are also simply wrong. You don’t have to endorse the often-brutal behavior of Kosovo’s government to recognize that Serbia’s claim to Kosovo contradicts widely-accepted principles of self-determination and national sovereignty.
At this point, Djokovic is who he is: he runs straight toward controversy. (“You know, drama-free Grand Slam, I don't think it can happen for me,” he said this week. “I guess that drives me.”) And certainly, we are in no position to condemn Djokovic for using his platform to take a political stand.
The bigger problem, though, arises from the response of the French Open and French officials. According to a statement from France’s minister of sports Amelie Oudea-Castera, the French Open director Amelie Mauresmo spoke with Djokovic about his comments, rebuking him for violating the principle of “neutrality" on the field of play. In an interview with a French TV news station, Oudea-Castera said, “When it comes to defending human rights and bringing people together around universal values, a sportsperson is free to do so,” but added that Djokovic's message was “militant, very political” and “must not be repeated.”
Missing from both Oudea-Castera’s statement and Mauresmo’s message to Djokovic was a clear defense of Kosovo’s independence as nation sovereignty — which France officially recognizes. These officials’ statements aren’t quite “shut up and dribble,” but they’re close. Contra Oudea-Castera, the problem with Novak’s statements isn’t that they’re “political” or even “militant.” It’s that they’re transparently revanchists. If French authorities find Djokovic’s statements to be objectionable — and they should, since they directly contradict France’s stated policy on Kosovo — the onus on them is to say why.
We’re all for using sports as a forum to debate political issues around the world, but that debate has to actually have two sides — not one side making an argument and the other side dodging the question by appealing to some illusory principle of neutrality. Much like Kyrie Irving, Djokovic gets away with progressively more outrageous crap because powerful people in his sport refuse to confront him directly.
Kosovo is a sovereign country. France believes it, and the French Open should, too.
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