Novak Djokovic, World Tennis Number One, nine times Australian Open champion, and the most famous living Serbian, disembarked at Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne during the evening of 5 January 2022, at the end of a 15-hour flight from Dubai. Upon arrival, he was arrested by armed Australian Border Force officers, denied an entry visa, and kept overnight at the airport, only to be transferred eight hours later to an ad-hoc immigrant detention centre at the Park Hotel, on Swanston Street in the inner-city neighbourhood of Carlton. The elite sportsman, also an anti-vaxxer, Covid-minimiser (organiser of the Adria Tour in June 2020 during the pandemic), and a proponent of alternative healthcare, was alleged to have flown in under a temporary “medical exemption”, issued by the Government of the State of Victoria and Tennis Australia and allowing quarantine-free travel, so that he could participate in the Australian Open Championship, due to start on 17 January.
According to the Australian Department of Health’s ATAGI (Australian Technical Advisory Group Immunisation) guidelines, all inbound travellers aged 12 and over must provide evidence of full vaccination prior to arrival through the Australian Travel Declaration. Full vaccination requires two doses of Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)-approved or TGA-recognised Covid-19 vaccines, spaced at least 14 days apart, allowing at least 7 days after the second dose. Vaccination is rarely contraindicated under ATAGI rules, except for certain rare and severe adverse reactions to previous vaccination, when an alternative type of vaccine may be administered instead. Vaccination may also be temporarily deferred in the presence of an acute illness. Djokovic’s exemption, according to his lawyers, may relate to a positive Covid PCR test in December 2021.
Djokovic, whose vaccination status is unknown, may have contravened federal government rules by travelling to Australia, a view that was echoed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Twitter, when he wrote “Rules are rules, especially when it comes to our borders”. However, it seems unlikely that he could board a flight for Australia without a valid exemption of some sort. The incident has exposed a lack of coordination between Australia’s tennis authorities and the Victorian and federal governments in enforcement of Covid-related travel restrictions. Djokovic, his family and supporters, and the Serbian nation generally are naturally unhappy with the decision to detain the tennis player and deny him an entry visa, although he is apparently free to leave if he so desires.
The detention of Serbia’s national icon has inevitably become politicised, to the detriment of Australian-Serbian relations. Djokovic’s father, Srdjan, told a press conference in Serbia’s capital of Belgrade that “they’re stomping all over him to stomp all over Serbia and the Serbian people”. His mother, Djana, went further and said “Novak is Serbia, and Serbia is Novak”. Serbia’s president Aleksandar Vučić ‘s Instagram post confirmed that he had “told our Novak that the whole of Serbia is with him”. The Australian ambassador in Belgrade was summoned to Serbia’s foreign ministry, while demonstrators protested outside the Serbian National Assembly, responding to calls for support from Djokovic’s family. On the other hand, despite some sympathy for Djokovic’s predicament within Australia, including from a not insubstantial community of Serbian-Australians, the majority of Covid- and lockdown-weary citizens seem supportive of the decision to keep Djokovic out of their country.
We need dwell no longer on the merits and demerits of Australian border policies, but may instead choose to explore the wider context of Serbia’s vigorous response to the Djokovic incident, by undertaking a historical tour of the country. The roots of Serbia date back to the settlement of the Balkan Peninsula by Slavs during the Great Migrations of the 6th and 7th centuries AD. The Slavic tribes and clans, led by assorted chieftains, united in a kingdom under Stefan Nemanja during the twelfth century. Stefan’s third son, St Sava, secured autocephaly (autonomy) for the Serbian national church in 1291 and became its first head. The Serbian kingdom came to be defined by its allegiance to the Orthodox Church, just as neighbouring Croatia turned to Rome, and many of its kings were accordingly canonised in the Orthodox tradition. Through a series of territorial acquisitions, the Serbian Empire at one time occupied much of the Balkan Peninsula. Decline set in with major Turkish victories in 1371 (battle of Chernomen) and in 1389 (battle of Kosovo Polje). Despite centuries of vassaldom under the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, the Serbs zealously protected their culture and faith and retained their national identity. The Principality of Serbia that subsequently emerged in 1817, after centuries of colonial rule, is the precursor of modern-day Serbia.
South Slav unification took shape during the early 20th century. A South Slav unionist precipitated the Great War by assassinating Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed in 1918, after the end of the war. Following a period of Nazi German occupation (1941-45), the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established in 1945, with Serbia as the dominant partner. But it was an uneasy alliance of peoples with shared ethnicities, divided by culture and religion. The 1990s saw the gradual dismemberment of the “non-aligned” socialist state as its constituent republics seceded, from 1991 onwards. Serbia itself lost its territory of Kosovo in 1999 to NATO troops, called in support of separatist Albanian rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army, who went on to unilaterally proclaim independence in 2008. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising the Serb-majority states of Serbia and Montenegro, lingered on as a rump state between 1992 and 2003
The Bosnian War of 1992-95, in which all sides committed atrocities on civilians, including torture, rape, murder, property destruction, and ethnic cleansing through deportations, confinement to concentration camps, and mass genocide, saw particular disapproval of Serbian actions. Serbia was widely portrayed as the aggressor in its quest for a Greater Serbia, leading to diplomatic isolation and UN sanctions. President Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Karadzic, and General Ratko Mladic were the most prominent of the 161 Serbs indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague. Milosevic died during his trial in 2006, while the other two received long prison sentences. The fall-out from the conflict in Bosnia continues to this day.
Serbia’s integration into the EU has been delayed by its failure to recognise Kosovan independence and by concerns over its democratic development. Instead, the nation has looked eastward for continued support, both from its natural Slavic ally of Russia and increasingly from China-its best friend during the pandemic. The Djokovic incident, as seen through a Serbian lens, is being interpreted as yet another example of the Western “harassment” of a proud Serbian nation, one which has carved out its own historical narrative of a beleaguered country standing up for itself in the face of unjust international criticism.
Ashis Banerjee
PS: On 10 January, Djokovic successfully appealed against deportation and was released from detention, leaving the final decision to allow him to stay in the country in the hands of the Australian government. During the hearing, he confirmed that he was not vaccinated