{"id":31030,"date":"2026-01-29T16:10:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/?p=31030"},"modified":"2026-02-01T11:54:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:54:22","slug":"a-critics-reading-note","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/a-levantine-youth\/a-critics-reading-note","title":{"rendered":"Critical Reflections on my “Levantine Youth” by an AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

<\/h1>\n

A Levantine Youth<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The book first strikes the reader with the power of its narrative. Santi possesses an undeniable gift for evocation: Beirut before 1975, the scents of the Mediterranean, Jesuit liturgies, the fervor of an Oum Kalthoum recital, Saudi humidity, the solemnity of Mecca, the fury of the Christian militias. The text is carnal, vibrant, often magnificent. The reader is swept up by the voice of a child hurled into tragedy, whose sensitivity seems sharpened by every shock.<\/p>\n

But this stylistic success is also the heart of the problem. A Levantine Youth<\/em> is not merely a testimony: it is a staging of the self, an intimate mythology. The author does not simply recount; he constructs himself as an exceptional character, placed at the center of the great fractures of the century. At twelve, he accompanies a Saudi prince to Mecca. As a teenager, he is enlisted in an extremist Lebanese militia. Later, he meets Khomeini, then crosses Israeli lines. Life becomes a novel, and the novel becomes a justification.<\/p>\n

This aesthetic of exception feeds a persistent moral ambiguity. Santi asserts that \u201cone can witness a crime without necessarily approving of it.\u201d
So be it. But the book constantly transforms proximity to horror into an initiatory privilege. War, militia life, religious radicalism become formative, almost necessary stages of an \u201cextraordinary\u201d destiny. The author even writes that the destruction of Lebanon was the condition of his \u201csublime destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

This staggering sentence reveals a dangerous temptation: subordinating collective catastrophe to individual fulfillment.<\/p>\n

The relationship to violence is thus continually aestheticized. The Christian militias, with which the author was close, are described in their brutality, but also in their energy, their fraternity, their tragic intoxication. The executioners sometimes appear as novelistic figures, almost heroic. Evil is acknowledged, but magnified by style. Confession becomes epic. This shift raises a major ethical question: can horror be turned into lyrical material without attenuating its gravity?<\/p>\n

The same unease runs through the pages devoted to Khomeini. Santi recounts the fascination exerted by the ayatollah, his \u201cunbearable charisma,\u201d and confesses that he almost \u201cabandoned everything for him.\u201d
To be sure, he later acknowledges that Khomeini\u2019s name has become \u201csynonymous with inhumanity and cruelty.\u201d
But the book persists in seeking an \u201cother version\u201d of the dictator, as if state terror could be relativized by a benevolent personal experience. Once again, the intimate threatens to dissolve the political.<\/p>\n

On the ideological level, the book is permeated by a seductive syncretic discourse: the monotheistic religions are said to be sisters, their conflicts arising more from their similarities than from their differences, in a Girardian reading.
This humanist vision is generous. But it also tends to flatten historical responsibility. Everything becomes \u201ccomplexity,\u201d \u201centanglement,\u201d \u201ccommon destiny.\u201d Yet war is not merely an abstract evil: it is made of decisions, chains of command, precise ideologies. By diluting causes into a metaphysics of tragedy, the narrative risks depoliticizing violence.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s great strength\u2014its avowed subjectivity\u2014thus becomes its weakness. Santi claims the right to confusion, ambivalence, contradiction. The problem is not that he was lost, fascinated, manipulated. The problem is that the text sometimes seems to turn these wanderings into proofs of election. The tossed-about child becomes a tragic hero, almost chosen by History. Fault is acknowledged, but transfigured: \u201cI would never have known happiness [\u2026] without the evil I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

This logic is dangerous, because it naturalizes violence as a necessary stage of success.<\/p>\n

Yet A Levantine Youth<\/em> remains an important book. Not because it provides an objective key to the Middle East, but because it exposes from within the vertigo of belonging, the seduction of the sacred, the intoxication of murderous identities. It shows how an adolescent can be swept up by narratives of grandeur, by charismatic father figures, by absolute causes. In this sense, it is a valuable document on the psychology of radicalization.<\/p>\n

It must, however, be read at a distance. This text is not a history manual, nor a political treatise: it is a mythologized autobiography. Its beauty is real, but deceptive. It embellishes what it claims to denounce. It turns war into operatic scenery. The reader must therefore resist the enchantment of style in order to maintain critical lucidity.<\/p>\n

A Levantine Youth<\/em> is a great, ambiguous book. It illuminates the Levant as much as it reveals one man\u2019s illusions about his own trajectory. It fascinates, unsettles, disturbs. But it also compels us to ask an essential question: how far can one sublimate evil without betraying it?<\/p>\n

Finally, the preface by Gilles Kepel is not insignificant: it functions as an intellectual guarantee, almost an anticipated amnesty, for a narrative that constantly flirts with fascination for violence and for charismatic power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Levantine Youth The book first strikes the reader with the power of its narrative. Santi possesses an undeniable gift for evocation: Beirut before 1975, the scents of the Mediterranean, Jesuit liturgies, the fervor of an Oum Kalthoum recital, Saudi humidity, the solemnity of Mecca, the fury of the Christian militias. The text is carnal,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":31051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_crdt_document":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[648942945],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-levantine-youth"],"yoast_head":"\nCritical Reflections on my "Levantine Youth" by an AI - Michel Santi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/a-levantine-youth\/a-critics-reading-note\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Critical Reflections on my "Levantine Youth" by an AI - Michel Santi\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A Levantine Youth The book first strikes the reader with the power of its narrative. 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A literary and well-documented book, at the crossroads of political novel, personal diary, and geopolitical confession. It probes, with rare acuity, our\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A levantine youth"","block_context":{"text":"A levantine youth","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/a-levantine-youth"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":29552,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/jeunesse-levantine-3\/jeunesse-levantine-santi","url_meta":{"origin":31030,"position":2},"title":"The incredible youth of a Geneva financier","author":"Michel Santi","date":"June 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"L'Orient le Jour - Lebanon And \"The incredible youth of a Geneva financier\" \u00a0 https:\/\/jim.media\/articles-jim\/articles-de-une\/lincroyable-jeunesse-dun-financier-genevois\/ \"A must-read to understand the Middle East \u2014 past and present \u2014 through the eyes of a remarkable witness.\" Buy it: France:\u00a0FNAC Switzerland:\u00a0PAYOT Lebanon:\u00a0ANTOINE Canada:\u00a0Les Libraires AMAZON An autographed edition","rel":"","context":"In "Jeunesse levantine"","block_context":{"text":"Jeunesse levantine","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/jeunesse-levantine-3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/LOLJ-SANTI.jpg?fit=1200%2C1198&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":29384,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/muslim-brothers\/my-interview-with-radio-courtoisie","url_meta":{"origin":31030,"position":3},"title":"My Interview with Radio Courtoisie","author":"Michel Santi","date":"May 23, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Listen to my key points in this interview given on the occasion of the publication of my book \u2018A Levantine Youth\u2019. \"Those who know the foundations of the Quran understand that a whole movement within the Muslim Brotherhood seeks to return to authentic Islam. And we must be aware of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "muslim brothers"","block_context":{"text":"muslim brothers","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/muslim-brothers"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29566,"url":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/jeunesse-levantine\/confession-of-an-ordinary-monster","url_meta":{"origin":31030,"position":4},"title":"Confession of an Ordinary Monster","author":"Michel Santi","date":"June 6, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"A hybrid tale, where the threads of family are tightly woven with the tremors of History \u2014 the Lebanese civil war, the surge of Palestinian nationalism, Syria\u2019s ghostly maneuvers \u2014 this narrative follows in the footsteps of civil war chronicles, echoing the voices of Ziad Doueiri and Amin Maalouf. 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The country is once again facing an existential threat, as the U.S. President's aggressive stance on tariffs has led to a roughly 20% drop in oil prices this year so far.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iran"","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/category\/iran-2"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/K-et-MS.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/K-et-MS.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/K-et-MS.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/michelsanti.fr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/K-et-MS.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31030"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31062,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31030\/revisions\/31062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michelsanti.fr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}