
The Djokovic vs. Australia scandal has turned the player into a symbol of the anti-vaxxer movement and led to the emergence or resurrection of many false narratives about the pandemic or Serbia.
NEWS: “We Romanians, in spite of temporary slips and guilty illusions that the ephemeral leaders of Romania might have had, have always appreciated, admired and loved the brave and proud Serbian nation, always reborn from the ashes like a Phoenix Bird of the Balkans, in spite the big and terrible enemies who would have wanted it on its knees for good!
The “case” of the great Serbian athlete is not about "technical issues", about his passport, about testing and vaccination. Not. It’s about the serious "disease" that has gripped the minds of the world's cursed rulers, about the growing mankurtization of the world's population and the immense danger that the world, most countries, will become a huge "penal colony”
Novak is "guilty" because he is a free, Christian and Orthodox MAN living in the Balkans, and, on top of that! Novak is also "guilty" because his extremely courageous, stubborn-dignified attitude is an example for those who still have vague traces of love for the people, longing for freedom, faith in God, and patriotism!
And it is also about us, the Romanians - a gentle population, quickly accustomed to slavery, obedient and on the verge of having its identity extinct ... ”(Activenews)
"Dan Tomozei brings to the attention of the Romanian public the gesture of honor made by the President of Serbia who defended the tennis player Novak Djokovic in his dispute with Australia over him not being vaccinated.”
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"YES! This is how a world leader should be defended, a model of conduct and modesty, despite his value and financial-material resources!”, Tomozei wrote on his Facebook account.
He praised the Serbian president for going public to defend the world’s best tennis player Novak Djokovic, who was treated unacceptably by the Australian authorities. " (sputnik.md)
NARRATIVES: 1. Novak Djokovic has defeated the sanitary dictatorship. 2. Novak Djokovic has been persecuted by the Australian authorities for being an Orthodox from the Balkans. 3. The world occult is trying to control the population through anti-Covid measures and turn people into prisoners trapped in their own homes. 4. Serbia is a dignified country, which, although unjustly the target of Western persecution, could not be brought to its knees.
LOCAL CONTEXT / ETHOS: Novak Djokovic, a staunch supporter of naturopathy, made it clear in 2020 that he did not agree with the mandatory vaccination, and later refused to say publicly whether he was vaccinated against Covid or not. (in the meantime, it became clear that he wasn’t). In order to receive a visa from Australia, the world number one obtained a medical exemption which was granted to him after proving that he had been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in December. Australia is one of the countries with the most draconian anti-Covid restriction policies. The city of Melbourne, for example, has been under lockdown for almost 9 months in total, since the start of the pandemic. The news that Djokovic had received a visa triggered people’s protest, amid dissatisfaction with a preferential regime granted to VIPs. Upon arrival in Australia, Djokovic was announced that he would be deported and placed in a prison hotel until his departure, but a few days later a judge found that the Serbian player had completed all the necessary formalities, so revoking his visa was illegal.
The initial decision to revoke his visa was also seen as a political act, part of a dispute between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the local government of the state of Victoria . In Serbia, where the scandal sparked outrage , Djokovic's cause was also taken up by nationalists, who resumed earlier theses on the West's persecution of Serbs, and even the president and the prime minister intervened. The player’s family was extremely virulent, and compared him to Jesus Christ and later to a Spartacus of the new world and a symbol of "the free world, of the poor and disadvantaged nations and peoples."
The Djokovic scandal has also caused a stir among the anti-vaxxer and Corona-skeptic movement, which has interpreted the case in terms of a political struggle - on the one hand, those trying to restrict fundamental freedoms through health measures, and on the other those who say no in the name of freedom.
However, the Djokovic scandal did not end with the court’s decision to set the player free.
He later admitted that he had traveled in the two weeks before arriving in Australia, although he had written the opposite in his statement to enter the country; However, Djokovic says the document was filled in by his team. On the other hand, the tennis player went out in public, including without a mask, after December 16, when he took a PCR test. The tennis player says that on the 17th, when he met with junior tennis players, he did not know that he was infected - although the result came out on the 16th in the evening - but he admitted that, although he knew he had Covid, he gave an interview on the 18th. Moreover, a Der Spiegel investigation raises questions about the PCR test and its veracity. The Australian Minister for Immigrants can still revoke Djokovic's visa, who, if he lied, risks further problems in both Australia and Serbia (if it is proven that he knowingly spread Covid-19); By the time this material was written, the Djokovic case had not yet been settled.
PURPOSE: To undermine efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. To legitimize the opposition to vaccination by shifting the discussion from the scientific area to the political area.
WHY THE NARRATIVES ARE FALSE: Novak Djokovic did not try to change Australia's health policies in any way; the Serbian player used the existing legal provisions, got a medical exemption and based on that exemption he initially received the visa to enter Australia. Djokovic's team of lawyers has sued the Australian authorities for violating their own rules. There is no evidence that the decisions of the Australian authorities were influenced by Novak Djokovic's nationality or religion. The very fact that the court ruled in favor of Djokovic shows that the authorities cannot act at their discretion, as anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists claim.
As for Serbia and the related sovereigntist narratives (of Serbian nationalists and admirers of the country), it should be noted that radical nationalist policies have proved extremely damaging to Serbia. They were one of the main causes of the Yugoslav wars and the isolation of Belgrade. From the dominant force in Yugoslavia, Serbia has become one of the most underdeveloped states in the Western Balkans, behind other ex-Yugoslav countries that have proven to be much more serious about democratization and reform (Slovenia and Croatia have been EU and NATO members for years, North Macedonia and Montenegro have shown that they are determined to follow the same path). Nationalist policies and the authoritarian tendencies of the Vucic regime, as well as its association with Russia and China, diminish even more the prospects of Euro-Atlantic integration, which could provide both real security and a chance for prosperity.
GRAIN OF TRUTH: The revocation of Novak Djokovic's visa is most likely related to the fact that he was not vaccinated and it was a political decision given that the player did provide the necessary documents, as shown by the court.
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