10 August 2009

Hope and Friendship Take Over

Romain (left) “hit it off instantly” with his roommate Goko when they met as exchange students in the United States.

By Romain Vezirian

A French college student of Armenian heritage arrives at the University of Oklahoma to discover he is sharing a room with another student who represents the traditional nemesis of his people. How he handles the moment changes his life. Romain Vezirian is a 26-year-old information manager for a communication agency in Paris. He spent a semester at the University of Oklahoma in 2005, and graduated from the Blaise Pascal University of Clermont-Ferrand in 2007.

“This cannot be happening. This just can not be happening!”

This was almost my first thought when I arrived at my new apartment on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, far different from what I had imagined. After all, I had been accepted for one semester, and the simple fact of being on campus was a dream come true for the young French student that I was. Everything was bigger, the girls were prettier, the people were more friendly. In short, I was in pretty high spirits when entering the door of my new apartment.

That changed fast.

I had agreed, mainly to save money, to share a room with another foreign student whom I knew nothing about. I was aware that he had arrived a day earlier, but the apartment was empty when I got there. I started unpacking and noticed that my roommate had left his passport on his desk.

“A quick look at it, just to know what he looks like,” I thought. Next thing I knew, I had the passport in my hands, and what I saw did not please me at all. My roommate for the next semester would be Turkish. Not a big deal for many. But being half Armenian, it made a huge difference to me.

The history between Turkey and Armenia is a series of awful events. The vast majority of western historians have acknowledged that massacres between 1915 and 1917 were state-sponsored mass killings, more commonly known as the Armenian genocide. The Armenian diaspora has been campaigning for official recognition of the events as genocide for more than 30 years. In 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes and launched a campaign of forced marches and deportations ending with an estimated 1 to 1.5 million deaths. To this day, Turkey does not accept this recounting of the events, even though most genocide scholars and historians agree on this view. These same events forced my grandparents to leave their country. Both of my great-grandfathers were killed.

Romain today works in the communications industry in Paris.

Getting Past Stereotypes

With this family history, I definitely had resentment toward the whole country, but having grown up in France, I had never really met a single person from Turkey. Now I was about to have to share my own room with one for a whole semester! Obviously, I was upset, but what could I do? Blatantly ignore him? Refuse to talk to him? Bearing a grudge would definitely ruin my plan for a fun semester in the United States. I decided I would give the guy a chance (his name was Goko) and see where it would lead. In retrospect, this was one of the best decisions I ever made.

I believe getting past stereotypes is one of the hardest things to do in life. But that’s what happened in the first 10 minutes I talked to Goko. Against all odds, we hit it off instantly, and all the bad thoughts I had about Turkey and Turkish people were destroyed. I remember these moments so vividly, probably because they were my first step toward forgiveness. I was not very talkative at first, not wanting to lower my guard, but quickly realized it was no use fighting against good vibes and the beginning of a friendship. It was still a bittersweet feeling, because I could not stop wondering: “What would my grandparents think if they could see me right now?” Until I realized Goko was just a young student like me, enjoying life, and was more than happy to talk about our many common interests.

He was also, obviously, not responsible for what previous generations had done before him. It almost sounds like a cheesy movie, but we became best friends and spent most of our free time together. I really cannot imagine what my semester at the University of Oklahoma would have been like without him.

Cherished Memories

When I look back on it, I remember the great teachers, the amazing facilities, the American friends I made, but what I cherish the most is my relationship with Goko and how much it changed me as a person. I now fully understand that ignorance causes wars and massacres like the one that took place in 1915. When people get together and try to understand each other’s cultures and views, hope and friendship quickly take over.

I even became good friends with some other Turkish guys Goko introduced me to! If I had stayed in France, this would have never happened. If somebody had told me that I would become friends with a Turkish guy, I would never have believed them. I would just have stayed with my stupid ideas for the rest of my life. It was only one of many good experiences I had at the University of Oklahoma, but this one alone was worth the trip. It allowed me to become a more open-minded person, willing to get out of my comfort zone and meet different people. There is not only one right way of living or doing things, I learned, there are many. This is what makes our world so diverse and worth discovering.

I left the University of Oklahoma right before Christmas. Even if Goko, as a Muslim, does not celebrate Christmas, I wanted to get him a gift and found a t-shirt that I thought he would like. The funny thing is that he had the same idea, and actually bought me the exact same present! We ended up looking like two idiots wearing the same clothes: one Turkish, one from Armenian descent, laughing just like two brothers.

Four years after their stay in Oklahoma, Romain and Goko still keep in touch. They plan on seeing each other again, whether in Paris or Istanbul.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.