One year since Oct. 7 attack: Winnipegger reflects on escalations in Middle East

Exactly one year since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Canadians across the country commemorated the day.

They paid tribute to thousands of people killed amid the war and the families still caught in affected regions in the Middle East.

CityNews sat down with Zobair Deen, a Winnipegger from Afghanistan who fled the country’s civil war at 16 years old. After settling in Canada, he returned to the Middle East as a NATO strategic advisor and researcher specializing in countering violent extremism.

With many personal ties to all the regions affected by the conflict, Deen shares what he’s hearing from his friends on the ground and his hopes for the future.

“There’s a situation of fear right now. A lot of fear. A lot of anxiety,” he described. “Some individuals are trying to get out of the countries that are affected or will be affected in the coming months if this violence is not controlled.

“This is an imposed war on all sides right now. The civilians are paying the price.”

‘Most horrific thing’: Events across Canada mark one year since Oct. 7 attacks

Deen says one of his immediate worries is the barrage of airstrikes in the regions, and the impact they’ll have on future escalations.

“Each bomb that’s dropped there, this will fuel up the extremism, the violent extremism in the area and the region and globally,” he said.

“G7 countries were very, very active in deciding what’s going to happen in terms of peace or negotiations around the world. But right now, we don’t have a strong representation. There’s an absence of international communities involved right now to encourage people to come to negotiating tables.”

The former NATO strategic advisor says above all, his thoughts are with families who in many ways were just like his own when they were forced to leave their home behind.

“Eventually, these kids will grow up with scars of war.”

—Zobair Deen

“Down the road we’ll be dealing with mental health, we’re going to be dealing with these kids that would become adults with anxiety, with pain, with fear, with suffering. So essentially they would be the carriers of the generational cycles of trauma in their families.”

With Canadian Thanksgiving also quickly approaching, Deen says he’s reflecting on what he can do to bring people together during this difficult time.

“How about if we invite someone strange that we thought very different about around our dinner table,” he said. “How about we feed them first. How about we hear their side of the story. How can we love them? Love, essentially, would win.

“There’s no justification for violence. There’s no justification for discrimination. As a community, how we can bring healing is to get to know our neighbour.

“I really encourage all sides to come together and build on the commonality that we have. The one thing that I’ve been hearing across various different communities has been that they want peace.”

Deen says world leaders who have the power to influence the conflict need to embrace an old concept from Afghanistan: “Three Cups of Tea.”

“We offer the first cup of tea with no strings attached,” he explained. “We offer a second cup of tea evaluating our relationship. With three cups of tea, we make a covenant with our friend, with our neighbour … making a promise of building a covenant and making a promise of building on the commonality of what we have in common, and what we’re going to lose if we were not to build on the peace part of our covenant.

“The first cup of tea may take months. The second cup of tea and third cup of tea will help all sides to come to an agreement. A peaceful agreement.”