Dear Reader,
For me, spring means throwing an ultimate frisbee around with my friends before dipping my toes in the cool Deerfield River. It means singing Taylor Swift at the top of my lungs on spontaneous walks around the Loop. It means reading a book under the sun’s gentle caress in front of the MSB lawn. Meaning is how we make sense of this place as individuals and as a collective. But when we move our sights beyond the sun-filled Valley, what does it mean to be a student of the world at this moment in time?
As the days bleed into 80-degree weeks and COVID-19 appears to be a relic of the past, it becomes easy to forget about the world outside of our ivory towers. But we need to remember that we live in a blissful bubble, that the world is wider than this 330-acre land we call home.
In Israel, the prominent Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh was shot dead on May 11th while reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Her fellow journalists have accused the Israeli army of shooting her. According to The Guardian, Aquleh was “known as the voice of the Palestinian conflict and an advocate for the people of Gaza and the West Bank.”
In Hong Kong, John Lee was appointed as the next Chief Executive on May 8th. After the current Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that she won’t seek a second term in April 2022, all eyes turned to Lee, a former Secretary for Security who oversaw the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 2019. As the sole candidate approved by China in the election, he was chosen as the next Chief Executive by the 1,5000 member committee and will take office on July 1st, 2022.
In Nigeria, a recent market explosion on April 19thin the rural town of Iware resulted in approximately 30 casualties. A terrorist organization, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), claimed responsibility for the attack. For more than a decade, Nigeria has been fighting with both the ISWAP and Boko Haram in a conflict that has killed thousands and displaced millions more.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban installed a law that required women to wear a veil whenever they leave their homes in public. The moves signals a reversal from the Taliban’s initial moderate stance and may foreshadow a further regression of gender equality.
Israel, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Afghanistan. These are just snapshots of the current events happening around the world. Each one impacts a different Deerfield student in its own way. While the allure of the Deerfield bubble may make it easy to forget about the world outside, I urge you to take five minutes out of your day to learn about current affairs and to make meaning of the world around you. Open The New York Times app on your phone during Flex Time, follow the BBC’s Instagram account, or converse with students from other countries during sit-down meals.
At the Scroll, we are committed to promoting global stewardship and facilitating “informed discussions of pertinent issues that concern the Academy and the world.” In the last issue, we sought to highlight the diversity of Deerfield students and their perspectives. The Russo-Ukraine war timeline delineated how the invasion has uprooted the lives of two Deerfield students. On the Op-Ed page, Angel Zhou ’21 explained how the pandemic has ravaged her hometown, Shanghai, and resulted in a critical shortage of food supplies. In this issue, you’ll find articles ranging from the leaked Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade to the Buffalo shooting. As Billy Tang ’25 writes in his Op-Ed, “to create effective leadership in a rapidly changing world, we all need to be informed and prepared.” We hope that after reading this issue, you’ll look beyond the headlines to formulate your own understanding of our society.
As we lounge on the green lawn chairs and dream about our summers, take a second to appreciate the moment. How we create meaning out of moments like these is important, but how we discuss and make sense of our experiences in this vast universe is also significant. We hope that this issue of the Scroll will encourage you to look beyond Deerfield’s ivory towers and its shimmering bubble and glimpse a world wider and truer. And as always, if you have an original perspective or story about the Valley or of the world at large, please consider joining us on this mission.
Warmly,
Sunshine 陈心旎