The Sentence That Changed the Course of My Life. Noureddine Boutahar

In the early 1970s, deep in the Moroccan countryside, I was one of the lucky few in our school to pass the primary school

certificate exam (Shahada). Back then, that certificate carried as much weight as a high school diploma does today. Celebrating those who passed was a major event—families and neighbors would gather, and the entire tribe would beam with pride.

But behind the joy of success, another battle was brewing: the quest to find a middle school in the city. In post-independence Morocco, schools were few and far between, and boarding slots were few and far in between. Facing this uphill battle, my father made up his mind. He decided to take me to the city of Meknes so I could live with my aunt and join my older brother, who was already studying there.

However, the real hurdle was securing a seat. For two whole days, my father combed through every school in the city, only to be met with the same devastating, broken-record response: “Everything is full.” On the third day, we sat down for lunch. My father had returned dragging his feet from utter exhaustion. Before we even touched our food, he looked at me, completely heartbroken, and told me he couldn’t find a spot. Then, he caught me off guard with a defining question: “Do you want to go back to the countryside and herd livestock?” Without a second thought, I answered him in earnest Amazigh: “No, I want to study.”

At that exact moment, I saw my father’s face change completely. His eyes welled up with helpless tears, and despite his hunger, he lost his appetite. My father was a disciplined man of habit; he had a hearty appetite but stuck strictly to three fixed meals a day—a rigid routine he maintained until he passed away at nearly a hundred years old. Yet, my cry for an education had completely cut off his appetite that day.

The next morning, God rest his soul, he asked me to come with him to the Mohamed bin Abdullah Middle School in the heart of Meknes. It was a prestigious institution where most of the teaching staff were Europeans, along with a few Egyptians and Palestinians. The moment we walked into the courtyard, we saw the principal standing outside his office, looking impeccably sharp and imposing in his sunglasses. We had barely reached him, and before we could even offer a greeting, my father bowed down in sheer parental desperation, trying to kiss his feet just to secure a seat for me. The principal nobly stopped him, lifting him back up. After a moment of heavy silence, the principal glanced back and forth between my father and me, as if weighing the situation in his mind. Then, he turned to my father and promised to work something out.

And so he did. I joined the classroom that very week. As the English say, and the rest is history.

Yes, I was given a new lease on life at a time when most, if not all, of my peers were condemned to drop out of school and spend the rest of their days enduring the harshness, fragility, and isolation of the countryside. All of this happened thanks to a single sentence that altered my destiny—and thanks to a great father who, despite only attending basic literacy classes, realized early on that education was the ultimate lifeline.

The 3 Lies of Harvard Noureddine Boutahar

During my stay in Boston in 2004, I had the privilage of visiting Harvard
University—that towering beacon of learning—in the company of a group of distinguished professors and students from Boston University. It was there, in the heart of this esteemed institution that enshrines Veritas (Truth) as its sacred motto, that I chanced upon a deliciously ironic paradox, one the locals recount with a knowing smile.

Standing proudly in Harvard Yard is a magestic bronze statue said to represent John Harvard. Among students, however, it goes by a far less reverent moniker: the Statue of Three Lies. At first glance, the label seems almost heretical in America’s oldest university, a place that claims truth as its lodestar. But, as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

The First Lie: A Case of Mistaken Identity

The inscription confidently asserts that the statue portrays John Harvard himself. In truth, that’s a bit of a tall tale. When the sculptor Daniel Chester French began work in 1884, he quickly discovered that no authentic portraits of John Harvard existed; the man had died more than two centuries earlier. Faced with this void, French scraped together an escape by using a Harvard student of the time, Sherman Hoar, as his model—thus giving a fictional face to a very real benefactor.

The Second Lie: The Founder’s Myth

The pedestal also proclaims John Harvard as the university’s “Founder.” Historically, however, a different truth lies beneath the surface. Harvard was established by a formal vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Harvard’s true claim to fame lies elsewhere: he was the institution’s first benevolent benefactor, donating half his estate and his entire library. The university bears his name as a tribute to his altruistic generosity, not as recognition of authorship.

The Third Lie: A Chronological Slip

Finally, the date 1638 is engraved as the year of Harvard’s founding. The records, however, are clear: the university was founded in 1636. The year 1638 marks John Harvard’s death and the execution of his bequest—not the birth of the institution itself.

Granting these narrative concessions, the statue remains a mandatory stop on any Harvard tour. Visitors and students alike line up to rub the statue’s left shoe for luck and for academic success. Decades of hopeful hands have polished the toe box of the shoe to a gleaming gold, creating a striking contrast with the rest of the bronze figure.

It is a scene that perfectly captures the uneasy marriage of academic dignity and popular myth. In the end, it reminds us that all that glitters is not gold—and that even at Harvard, a well-polished “lie” can grow into a beloved tradition.

Shadows and Lessons from Boston (contd) Noureddine Boutahar

 Boston reveals itself as a quiet visual composition, where layers of history stand shoulder to shoulder with a contemporary pulse and a firmly rooted academic spirit. It is a gentle city, yet heavy with memory; its landmarks speak eloquently of the transformations they have witnessed. From the Freedom Trail, its red line threading through old houses, silent churches, and the State House, to the precincts of Harvard University in Cambridge—where knowledge carries its own dignity and life moves to a modest, unhurried
rhythm—the past and the present interlace without clamor. This sense of clarity deepens during a stroll along the Charles River, which flows like an artery of light and water, dividing the city without tearing it apart, and then in the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), where art speaks in whispers and identities recede before the eye’s astonishment. Meanwhile, The T moves like an unseen thread, stitching places to faces and moments, affirming that Boston is not merely a place, but a state of being—one that quietly rearranges my relationship with time.

As days passed, Boston ceased to be a scene observed from the outside and became an experience lived from within. In its small details—in the measured pace of people’s steps, in their uncomplicated relationship with time, in the presence of books in cafés and on trains—there was a meaning that slipped in softly. A meaning not proclaimed aloud, but felt.

I came to realize, gradually, that reading here is neither an exceptional act nor a badge of cultural distinction; it is a daily habit, as natural as breathing. People carry books the way they carry their keys, returning to them whenever the day offers a small pocket of emptiness. It all seemed so ordinary as to pass unnoticed—except to someone arriving from a place where reading is an event rather than a routine. As the proverb goes, familiarity breeds content, and what is woven into everyday life rarely calls attention to itself.

I recall one day on The T, heading back from downtown toward the university district. The train was crowded, and I stood quietly watching faces. Most passengers were absorbed in their books, newspapers, or e-readers, as if each were traveling alone despite the crush. Suddenly the train lurched; I lost my balance and fell against a young lady seated nearby. I apologized, but she did not look up, nor did she show the slightest irritation. She was so immersed in her book that the surrounding world seemed no more than a faded backdrop.

In that moment, no grand explanation occurred to me, no ready-made conclusion. I simply sensed that reading creates around a person a calm distance—one that shields them from intrusion and offers an engagement deeper than watching others. Those who fill their time with what they read place a lighter burden on the world, granting others the simple right to be as they are. After all, empty minds are the devil’s workshop, while occupied ones tend toward quiet grace.

Thus Boston has remained in my memory: a city that does not teach by direct instruction, nor raise signposts telling you what to understand, but leaves its mark gently. A city that reminds you that what is built within endures more firmly than what is erected without, and that meaning—like a river—needs only a measure of silence to keep on flowing.

Shadows and Lessons from Boston Noureddine Boutahar

Boston University was never merely a stop along my academic path; it was a space where new layers of awareness took shape and where experiences accumulated with a depth no less profound than what I learned in lecture halls. Ah, Boston—a city that knows how to leave its mark on the soul, how to plant in memory shadows that do not fade with time. There, among the venerable buildings and quiet corridors of the university, I was not only a student in pursuit of knowledge, but a human being rediscovering himself, learning to see the world with wider eyes and a more attentive heart.

In those years, I lived in one of the university’s imposing wings—a residence modest in appearance yet rich in human encounters. I shared it with Si Ahmed, a Palestinian for whom Palestine lived in the chest long before it could ever be reduced to a place on a map. His talk was never mere political commentary or passing news; it was a daily confession of pain, memory, and a right that does not expire with time. He spoke of his homeland as one speaks of one’s mother—with raw sincerity and a loyalty that never runs dry. I listened at length, sensing—without his having to spell it out—that a homeland may be occupied in land, but it is never defeated as long as it lives in the hearts of its people. As the old saying goes, home is where the heart is.

The name of the building we lived in—Ignacio Hall—stirred a quiet curiosity in me. Who was this “Ignacio,” immortalized on a university wall? One day I asked a professor about him. She did not know the details, but she spoke of a well-rooted tradition in American academic culture: that students who find success return to their first university to give back, building a wing or endowing a facility that bears their name, in gratitude to the place that helped shape them. Her answer was less a lesson in history than in gratitude—a reminder that one good turn deserves another, and that true loyalty often speaks in deeds rather than slogans.

Beyond shared housing, Boston also gifted me a rare friendship whose warmth I still carry. Nasser, an Algerian from Kabylia, was my closest companion and daily confidant. Quiet and sparing with words, his presence was as reassuring as a clear morning. He faced life with a steady gaze, loved its simplicity, and lived in harmony with himself, as if calm itself had chosen to dwell in him. His Amazigh identity flowed in his veins without affectation or the need for proof—proof, after all, lies in being, not in saying.

I recall a day when we were strolling through downtown and came upon a large bookstore. We entered out of curiosity, perhaps also out of nostalgia for paper in an age when screens were beginning to elbow books aside. Silence ruled the place, until suddenly the strains of a Kabyle shatḥa drifted from a hidden speaker, breaking the stillness and awakening memory. In that instant, Nasser changed; something lit up in his eyes. He grasped the edges of his jacket and burst into the traditional Kabyle dance with pride and joy, oblivious to the surprised glances around him. I stood there, captivated, applauding, and understood then that true identity does not wither in exile—it often shines more brightly. You can take a man out of his land, but you cannot take the land out of the man.

Yet the deepest—and simplest—lesson came to me from an unexpected place: a glass door in the university library. One day, as I pushed it open, I felt it scraping the floor and wondered how such a flaw could go unattended. I remarked to Nasser, with mild disbelief, how Americans could overlook something so small. No one answered me that day. But the following morning, at precisely seven-thirty, we passed by the same spot. The door opened and closed smoothly, as if nothing had ever been wrong. I saw no maintenance worker and heard no tools—only the result. And then it dawned on me: progress is no magic trick, nor the child of chance; it is the quiet fruit of conscientious work done without fanfare. As the proverb has it, actions speak louder than words.