The poster boy for a world in shambles
If he sounds like a jerk and acts like a jerk, he probably is a jerk, or a Djok, or whatever pun one wants to make with Novak Djokovic. The Djoker who is the Djoke now.
I am so tired of the tennis superstar who has been such a news suck for the past week. Maybe he’s a great guy in real life, who knows. We can only speak to the spectacle created by his stubborn refusal to be vaccinated.
I would ordinarily be cheering on a man who is seeking a men’s record 21st Grand Slam singles title at the Australian Open. But instead I am — and I daresay a lot of us are — heartily sick of his shenanigans that have led to a polarizing diplomatic fiasco: Djokovic said he didn’t travel anywhere two weeks prior to going to Australia, but turns out he did travel, to Spain. Spain is apparently examining how he was allowed to enter unvaccinated.
Djokovic did get COVID, and met a journalist and a photographer and didn’t tell them he had it. He said he isolated for Serbia’s requisite two weeks. Turns out he didn’t — he was seen on the streets of Belgrade a week later.
Granted a medical vaccine exemption by Tennis Australia, refused an exemption by the Australian Border Force. He was going to be deported, but wait, now he’s included in the draw for the Australian Open, seeded of course at No. 1. The validity of his visa and his grounds for vaccination exemption are still stuck in a political and legal morass.
Just exhausting.
But there is one thing he is good for. If perchance you wanted to put a human face to the shambles the world is in and highlight various injustices, Djokovic is the poster boy you’re looking for.
Want to understand the hypocrisy of the rich — people, institutions and nations alike — through the story of one human? Djokovic’s Australia saga is tailor-made for it. While ordinary people in the state of Victoria face vaccine mandates and live with a severe lockdown, the tennis player who initially even refused to say if he was vaccinated was given an exemption from it.
Want to show how special treatment works? Look at Djokovic. Then consider Naomi Osaka. Fined $15,000 (U.S.) for prioritizing her own mental health and not doing press conferences. Can you imagine how Serena Williams would be treated if she threatened the health of the general public? Heck, she was banned from wearing a catsuit to prevent blood clots in her own pregnancy.
Want to show how special treatment works, part II? Take a look at the outside walls of the detention “hotel” in Melbourne that Djokovic was briefly placed in after Australia first rejected his vaccine exemption plea. There was freshly sprayed graffiti saying “Free Them All.” Refugee advocates flashing posters saying “Stolen Lives on Stolen Land.”
Unlike Djokovic, none of the refugees trapped in that centre for years by Australia’s brutal border policies have the luxury of living their lives outside squalid detention centres while the government decides their status. No, they can’t even open the windows to their rooms and are even served food with maggots and mould. All those people desperately hoping the attention on Djokovic would put the spotlight on their condition. But with Djokovic gone, the cameras have, too. The world doesn’t care.
Want to explain entitlement? Here is Djokovic swinging responsibility away from him with ease. This is misinformation! That is my agent’s mistake! The one I cannot explain away, that is an error of judgment. It’s hurtful! Poor me. And if the immigration minister who has strong discretionary powers to cancel his visa does so, he has a team of lawyers at the ready to appeal that decision in court.
Want to showcase a man who thinks he’s above the rules? Djokovic again, taking extraordinary liberties by refusing to take vaccines, getting COVID, still refusing to take them and trying to enter the country that had barred its own citizens from re-entry in previous COVID waves. He almost got away with it, too. This, even as millions around the world remain without access to the life-saving vaccines, thus giving the virus ample opportunities to mutate and hurt us all.
His own former coach, the legendary Boris Becker, said while he regards Djokovich as family, the player is making a mistake, letting the very stubbornness that made him a tennis great come in the way of becoming its greatest.
Looking for a meme to represent a problem that just won’t go away quietly? You guessed it.
Of course, he’s not the only prominent prat out there. The same could be said this week for Prince Andrew, who is facing a sex abuse lawsuit, and Boris Johnson, the British prime minister who is belatedly apologizing for attending a drinks party in the Downing Street garden in the middle of a lockdown in May 2020.
These three run the gamut in terms of talent from useless to a master in his sphere. But they’re joined together by their self-centredness. Pampered, petulant rich men so used to getting away with the worst excesses, that only when forced to be accountable do they claim wisdom “in hindsight” and then expect token contrition to be their only consequence.
Please, could 2022 reveal heroes who inspire over these self-indulgent bozos already.