text: Jaroslav Drahoš
Dear colleagues,
When I started writing this editorial this evening I realized that it is Friday, February 24, 2023. You will be reading this editorial later, probably around mid-March. I give this date because I realized the significance of February 24, certainly not only for me. Two events happened on this day. One is about building, finding solutions and fulfilling dreams. The other is dark, brutal, inhumane and absolutely unacceptable in this modern world.
The positive event happened on 24 February 1994. On this day, the Regional Court in Ostrava issued an extract from the Commercial Register where, after a rather long wait, a new company was registered under the name FINIDR, s.r.o., with the registration number 60778172.
FINIDR was born. So it’s been 29 years since the printer was registered. The printer was founded on a “green field” and has come a long way in that time. We have become a respected player in the domestic and international market. We are well known and our customers trust and rely on us. We have very good relations with them. It is a story of building, responsibility, finding solutions and overcoming considerable challenges. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all former and, of course, current employees. Wishing everyone good health, happiness and love. You are a great team and I appreciate it very much.
However, a different, but in this case inglorious, date falls on 24 February 2022. It is the exact year that Putin invaded Ukraine. It is the year I lost a lot of illusions. I thought that, in the 21st century, humanity had learned its lesson and that nothing like this would ever happen again in Europe, which has been through two world wars.
I was wrong. Even now, in the 21st century, the lust for power, personal ambition and the desire to make history, however it may be, can cause enormous human tragedy. The war has been going on for a year and the horrors continue. Attacks on civilians have become the norm. The atrocities that have taken place and continue to take place in Ukraine certainly do not belong in the civilised world. However, what surprised me much more was that some people, even clever people in this country, have allowed themselves to be manipulated by one-sided, purposeful and misleading information. Consciously or unconsciously, they support or approve of this aggression. Once again, we are repeating history, from which humanity does not know how to learn. Goebbels and Hitler also won a lot of people over to their side with their propaganda over a period of time, while carrying out atrocities that could not be justified in any way.
I keep my fingers crossed for Ukraine and its people, but I also keep my fingers crossed for all of us. Ukraine is also fighting for us. Russia is already openly saying that after Ukraine, it was the turn of the Baltic States, then Poland and then the other countries of the former Eastern Bloc. A year ago, it was once again demonstrated that where there is totalitarianism and unfreedom, there is no respect for anything, and therefore no respect for human life. Let us hope that this senseless war can be brought to an end as soon as possible and that further human tragedies can be prevented.
In the coming spring days I wish everyone lots of sunshine, fulfilled dreams, success and above all health.
Yours Jarek Drahoš
