Tomislav Đorđević

“If you want to know what a state or an administration is like and what is their future, just try to find out how many honest and innocent people are imprisoned in that state, and how many villains and offenders are free.”
(Ivo Andrić)

The media in a synchronized manner relay the apprehension of Tom Đorđević, and I am watching in disbelief, as a Kafkian and Damned Yard world opens before me. I am overwhelmed by fear, and shame, anger and horror. Questions are swarming in my head, questions dictated by logic. How can they publicly arrest a man whose guilt is only supposed? Who are the media doing there? Who prepared them? Who is so arrogantly showing their power? Is that SOMEONE trying to defend himself by accusing Tom? Who are these people who without shame, consideration and respect trample down human dignity, and Tom’s and ours? Franz Kafka has asked a long time ago: “What kind of people are those? What are they talking about? Which authority do they come from?” It becomes clear to me that the writers do not invent things; that we also live in some sort of Kafkaesque world and I whisper to myself: “While there is the darkness, there will be sunrise”. I want to believe in these things, since how could we live if only “black horses” would run around the world and on them “black horsemen”? I am wandering when and how they locked us in this damned yard. A great writer, Andrić, said comfortingly “apart from this Yard there is another and different world, this is not everything, and this is not forever.”

I know that Tom will not give up on himself, that he will fight, not just for his own dignity and honor, but this will be the fight for a more honourable and nicer face of Serbia and all of us. I am convinced of that because Tom is a man with a strong feeling of duty and responsibility, a man of high moral standards. I always see his outstretched hand, an optimistic spirit that was encouraging us even we were falling under the burden of worries. He gave himself completely to his work, friends, relatives and his family. A man of a high intelligence, open, amicable, courageous; he thought us how to solve problems and how to fight with trouble. And maybe Tom is chosen to defend human dignity and to reveal villains, vultures that hover around this country of ours? He might be chosen to fight against those people who “due to their own limitations believe without limitation in their own cleverness and shrewdness and in the correctness of each of their judgments and conclusions” and who would be harmless if they did not have power! However, by having power, they are “harmful both to the society and to the individual.”

I only know that Tom’s fight will not be an easy one, but I believe in Divine Justice; I believe that Tom will be the moral winner because he is strong and courageous, because he is defending justice and honesty and because all his friends and co-workers are standing by him.

Gordana Radosavac, teacher
Šid

Note: Damned Yard is a book by Ivo Andrić

Business Partners:

Ljubivoje Nikolić, Slobodan Pejović, “Tomić” printing, Mirjana Soro, Ferenc Kasa, Srboljub Đurić, Brane Pajić, Dušan Erdeljan, Živojin Janić, a group of enterpreneurs, Dušan Bokić, Slavko Gabrić, Geza Bleskanj, Veselin Šibul, Bogdan Rokvić, Branislav Rosić

Colleagues:

Jovan Cvetković, Dušan Tadić, Janez Škrubej, Slavoljub Pajkić, Stanka Radaković, Zlatica Nikačević, Đorđe Mitrović, Biljana Simić, Miladin Savić, Miroslav Fodora, Mirjana Srijemac, Dragutin Čop, Blažena Anđelić, Damjan Korda, Gordana Tešić, Dragan Stojanović, Dragan Radujko, Ivko Stojković, Igor Kizur, Željko Jakšić, Zdravko Josipović, Vladislav Hadžija, Robert Hep, Saša Krajnović, Radivoje Nikačević, Veselin Ristić, Branislav Radomirović, Aleksandar Divljak

Others:

Marijana Carić, group of classmates, Nikola Laćarac, Dragan Kosanović, Municipality of Mali Iđoš officials, Ivan Kopić, „Top 10 in Vojvodina“, Gordana Radosavac, Zoran Trajković