RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

Radical Middle | 73
cock-up. I wanted to be the front line of where things got argued
out, and hankered for the name Frontline.
at that time there were no frontline journals anywhere in the
world, that I could find. There was no frontline Bar Services, no
frontline Stage rentals, no frontline recruitment, no frontline
Tick & flea Powder. frontline wasn’t a word yet, except in South
africa, where it had one and one only very specific meaning.
The hostile ring of Z-states north of us – Mozambique, Zambia,
Tanzania, Zaire – were the frontline states. To christen a journal
Frontline was to state: “please, please, please, give us a banning
order”.
So, too bad. Tony produced several Africa Vision mock-ups.
We’d picked out a font and a style. It felt alright, though it didn’t
feel right.
Who should come to our aid but the government itself – in
the person of its most public face, foreign Minister Pik Botha.
Pik made a widely reported speech containing the phrase:
“South africa is THe frontline state”.
We leapt. The first words in Frontline, Vol 1, No 1, were Pik
Botha’s quote, loud and clear for the censors publications
controllers to see before they saw anything else.