Hum If You Don't Know the Words

The novel takes place during apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid refers to the government’s system of institutionalized racial segregation that gave the white minority economic, social, and political power and stripped the rights of the non-white majority throughout South Africa. This system was officially in place from 1948 through the early 1990s. The word apartheid literally means “apart-hood” in the Afrikaans language, which developed in the Republic of South Africa and derived from 17th-century Dutch. The events in Hum If You Don’t Know the Words begin in June 1976, days before the Soweto student protests in which white police killed hundreds of kids and injured thousands more who were peacefully protesting the school curriculum imposed by the Afrikaner government that required students to learn in both English and Afrikaans.

At the time of the protest, the country was nearly 30 years into the system of apartheid, and tensions were continuing to rise. The white government censored the media and banned the circulation of certain literature and images. The mining system in South Africa reflected the country’s labor conditions. Black men were rarely allowed to leave the mining towns, weren’t monitored for common mining diseases, and weren’t paid a living wage. White men also worked in the profitable mining industry, many overseeing Black workers. The government continued to use violence to suppress the Black majority, but many view the protests in the 1970s as a turning point in the fight to end apartheid. The effect of the student protest was felt throughout the country and the world. Other uprisings began to occur throughout South Africa, and as photos and information spread, other countries began publicly denouncing South Africa’s system of violent racial segregation, imposing sanctions, and boycotting goods from South Africa.

Complex racial tensions existed in South Africa for years before apartheid, both between white and Black people and within the white population. The Dutch first colonized South Africa, and when the British arrived in large numbers, the Dutch did not welcome them. These tensions came to a head in the Boer Wars, the second of which resulted in the British identifying Afrikaner people and Black people as potential collaborators and placing them in concentration camps. Tens of thousands of people died in these camps. This conflict created divides within South Africa’s white population that had lasting effects. Despite these internal rifts among white people, the system of apartheid granted all of them rights and privileges over the other racial categories, officially deemed “Black,” “Colored,” and “Indian.”

The African National Congress (ANC) existed in some form for years before apartheid to fight white oppression and advance the African liberation movement in general. Nelson Mandela became a significant figure in the ANC’s resistance efforts during the 1940s. In 1976, Mandela had been in prison for 14 years and was not released for 14 more. After his release, Mandela served as South Africa’s first democratically elected president. Characters in Hum If You Don’t Know the Words discuss his influence and imprisonment, citing him as an inspiration for their resistance.

Mandela authored several books on his experiences, including Long Walk to Freedom (1994), his autobiography; No Easy Walk to Freedom (1973), a collection of essays, speeches, and other works; and I Am Prepared to Die (1964), which is essentially his trial statement. Books by other authors explore the apartheid era as well. The Nobel Prize-winning novel Disgrace (1999) by J. M. Coetzee focuses on the post-apartheid era, following a white professor as he navigates the changing and challenging world of South Africa in its wake. Desmond Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness (1999) focuses on his time as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, an organization that Mandela established post-apartheid, and details the horrors of apartheid; the book won the Nobel Prize for Peace.