The world media has been focusing on the global mourning for South Africa’s former political prisoner/President, Nelson Mandela.

Cornell University student Alane Otani interviewed some South African scholars on campus for their impressions of Mandela.

…South African student Christina Mosalagae law said she was floored when she learned of Mandela’s death.

“When I heard the news, I thought, ‘it’s crazy,’ because there are moments in life when you will always remember — and here I was in my room at Cornell, the furthest possible place away from South Africa,” Mosalagae said.

She added that although she initially wished she were back in her home country, she soon realized she would not necessarily be at Cornell today had Mandela not led South Africa to democracy.

“If we hadn’t grown up in the Rainbow Nation, I wouldn’t be here. We could have gotten into a civil war, we could have been a completely different South Africa … but one person stood at the precipice of the moment and said he would do something different from everyone else,” she said. “What integrity — it humbles me.”

The feeling of indebtedness is one James Spanjaard ’14, who hails from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, said he relates to. Young South Africans “owe a tremendous amount to Mandela,” he said.

“We grew up with opportunities we wouldn’t have had, even in small things like the friendships we have today … and so I draw a lot of inspiration from that,” he said. “Mandela stands as the ideal of what a working South Africa should look like.”

Even after his death, Mandela will “without a doubt be a man whose legacy will forever be remembered,” said Simon Boehme ’14, a Truman Scholar who volunteered at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg last summer.

Whether it be for the South Africans he helped unite or younger generations who barely remember the apartheid, Mandela continues to serve as a role model for social justice activists, Boehme said.

Although violence routinely erupted on both sides of the apartheid movement throughout the 1950s, Mandela initially tried to persuade the African National Congress to practice nonviolent resistance. He also refused to accept an offer to be released from prison in 1985, saying, “What freedom am I being offered while the organization of the people remains banned?”

That model of resistance, negotiation and activism Mandela practiced still inspires people today, Boehme said.