At Roland Garros,
We still don’t know if 2023 will be the year of the Grand Slam record for Novak Djokovic, but we already know that it is the year of rapprochement with Maître Gims. The rapper’s alternative narrative, several weeks ago, on the EDF pyramids in Egypt made a sensational entry into the top 50 bogus theories, pointed monuments category. The Serbian tennis player has appeared there since 2020, and his first pilgrimage to the small town of Visoko, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the reliefs draw green pyramids. “One of the most powerful places on the planet in terms of energy”, according to Nole, a great apostle of esotericism.
The place became famous in 2005, when a Bosnian businessman and pseudo-archaeologist, Semir Osmanagic, decreed that the triangular hills were the work of an ancient (15,000 years old) and superior civilization. European Egyptians that we would have missed like idiots, what. “However, we know perfectly the archeology of these regions, namely that at the time it was hunter-gatherers as in France, before agriculture arrived around -6,000 BC in these regions, sweeps Jean-Paul Demoule, archaeologist for real. There is no place for a civilization that left pyramids 15,000 years ago. »
The anti-Covid pyramids
Osmanagic and his barely-forced Indiana Jones Mark Mark dismisses the old story, and gets the right to search the area. Very quickly, sorcerer’s apprentices flocked from all over the Balkans, to the great despair of the scientific community: it feared the destruction of already existing medieval historical sites. According to Demoule, co-signer of a petition against this madness in 2006, “they did come across a few medieval mine galleries while digging, but nothing more”.
Pseudoscience needing less evidence than convictions to exist, Osmanagic has not dropped the case. The pyramids have become a national park listed on Trip Advisor (count five euros for entry) with comments not always satisfied, of the style : “If you are thinking of visiting a pyramid, think again. [C’est] a simple tunnel dug in the mountain. In the midst of a pandemic, Osmanagic lent to the place anti-Covid powers : the pyramids would be charged with negative ions, which would be a real poison for the virus according to god only knows who.
It was enough for Novak Djokovic to arrive, a month after testing positive at the Adria Tour. Since then, the Serbian player has been going there alone or with his family to recharge his batteries. He even inaugurated the Pyramid of the Sun tennis courts in 2022 and more broadly relaunched tourism in the region and at the same time the business of his charlatan friend, whom he met again just this spring, at the bend of a conference held by the man in the hat.
The Osmanagic case is just one example among many of the Novak Djokovic problem since his fall into the esoteric pot under the impetus of guru Pepe Imaz. Last curiosity to date, the small “Iron Man” patch stuck to the Serb’s chest since the start of the fortnight, supposed to improve Nole’s posture under the effect of nanotechnology and light waves.
This patch “contains nanocrystals that convert body heat into light,” according to the brand’s website. This light would be “sent into specific acupuncture points, which helps your body remember how to communicate naturally with your receptors thereby regulating both your posture and movements. “Benefits announced by the manufacturer, who also touts his product to people suffering from multiple sclerosis.
The magic patch, his latest find
A multi-card product at first sight, but which would rather be classified on the side of mirages. “It seems to be an illusion or a placebo product”, concluded in 2020 Samuel Pinches, an Australian who was interested in the product. He had looked at the studies on the site and found them to be too weak or dubious. A new study added since in link on the site does not concern the product and is interested in effects on colonies of yeasts, results which are therefore not automatically valid in humans.
This is not the first time that Novak Djokovic has placed his trust in a device that is at best a placebo, especially regarding the way in which he came to eliminate gluten from his diet. An “alternative doctor” had carried out tests on him… by making him hold bread on his chest to assess the resistance of his arm.
Igor Cetojevic, the doctor who performed the diagnosis on Djokovic at the time, still offers consultations in Cyprus. On his site, he sells anti 5G devices and offers to “balance the chakras” using a computer. In January 2022, he came to the defense of his famous and former client, who was then in trouble with the Australian authorities because he was not vaccinated against Covid-19. Novak Djokovic “is not an anti-vax, as they say in the press”, had launched Igor Cetojevic at Cyprus Mail. “He has an overview, he is very clear. He is very pure. That’s why he’s dangerous,” he added, “for those little government rats! “.
Esoteric proselytism (involuntary)
But we are far away of the most questionable idea conveyed by Djoko, without even dwelling any longer on his opposition to the Covid vaccine. During a live in full confinement, the player evoked his adherence to the thesis of another guru, Chervin Jafarieh, according to which toxic foods could be transformed into perfectly healthy foods by simple prayer.
“I have seen people and I know people who through energy transformation, through the power of prayer, through the power of gratitude, manage to transform the most toxic foods and the most polluted water into the most purifying water.
There is evidence that having influential people promoting science can boost adherence to official medical advice and general trust in science, says Iris Zezelj, a researcher in social psychology at the University of Belgrade, and author of several works on conspiracy theories during the pandemic. Conversely, and given his vast notoriety, Novak has the potential to spread unsubstantiated claims as well as conspiratorial claims. Fortunately, I would say that this part of Novak’s public activity is not his main activity and is not perceived as such, even in the Balkans. »
Novak Djokovic has never understood the attacks on his beliefs. In an interview at The Team, shortly after the Jafarieh controversy, he defended that these only engaged him and were not imposed on anyone. “I’m not asserting anything […] But closed-minded people will judge. If someone disagrees with me, no problem. But why attack? Because I’m spreading false information? But I’m just asking questions. His beliefs would indeed be harmless if they belonged to him. But in a country where people stop working to watch him play and religiously drink in the least of his words, all spiritual words become proselytes.
“Heavenly People” and “Heart of Serbia”
Especially since the border of esotericism has been crossed recently. In 2021, during a visit to Bosnia, the Bosnian media Faktor.ba reported on Djokovic’s presence alongside extremist figures such as the Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and Milan Jolović, “a former commander of one of the most notorious units of the Republika Srpska rebel army, the Wolves of the Drina. »
Alexis Troude, Balkan specialist contacted by 20 minutes, wants to believe in the “naivety” of the player. A year earlier, during the first confinement, Novak Djoković had expressed his attraction for the Alternative History told by the revisionist Jovan Ilic Deretic during a live instagram on the account of his companion. Deretic exacerbated nationalism in his works by bringing up to date an idea spread by the Serbian Orthodox Church on the “celestial origins” of the people.
An idea shared by another disreputable friend of Djokovic, one more, the pulmonologist and allergist Branimir Nestorovic, who praised the resistance of the “Serbian gene” to Covid during the pandemic. Note that, during the famous live Insta, Nole once again tried to get away with relativistic rhetoric. “Each of us should have an open mind and do our own research,” said the Djoker. If we follow only one side of the information, it can hardly reflect the reality. Any resemblance to your annoying conspiratorial pal’s speech is purely coincidental.
Alexis Troude wonders about the Serb’s unprecedented political positions, recently materialized by support for the Kosovo Serbs, and the controversial use of the expression “heart of Serbia” to describe the independent state.
“Until the covid he took no political position. Being ostracized in Australia and being supported by the Serbian diaspora must have made him grow wings and he went beyond his own area of expertise. Perhaps because he is indisputable in Serbia, and no one dares set any limits on him or contradict him. »
His last intervention on Kosovo at a press conference goes in this direction. Novak didn’t back down, barely shut up. “I could say it again, but I won’t. A lot of people disagree, but that’s what I think. And no one will have his freedom to think. After Master Gims, Florent Pagny.