A familiar magazine cover caught my attention recently at a garage sale. The bold and iconic magazine ‘SCOPE’, that ran from 1965 to 1995, challenged the censorship laws of the time, featuring controversial content, risqué articles and scantily-clad centrefolds.
The magazine was regularly banned by the conservative South African censor board, yet continued to forge ahead regardless during the thirty years of its existence. While the board was kept busy, the publication became in its heyday one of South Africa’s best-selling magazines. While some may have read or enjoyed the articles, which over the years included interesting and sensational topics like abortion and birth control, interviews with SA’s most-wanted bank robber from the Stander Gang and the Jani Allan column, many men bought it for the bikini-clad centrefolds. These pull-out posters, often with black stars strategically placed to appease the censors, found their way into garages, student rooms and hostels, much to parents’ or hostel fathers’ exasperation. Eventually the magazines were sold in plastic wraps to avoid getting in the hands of the underage. Three decades of young men grew up with Scope, while the more liberated women would cast their eyes over the controversial material gleaning some fascinating information. In a time of severe political restriction, conservatism and censorship, Scope - although maybe not to everyone’s taste - undaunted, managed to flaunt its wares – both content- and photography-wise.
In Namibia (South West Africa/Namibia as it was then) an entirely unrelated publication, the weekly newspaper ‘Windhoek Observer’, also pushed the boundaries with the censor board. Founded by Hannes Smith and Gwen Lister in 1978 the Windhoek Observer, with Lister as the political editor, strived to give the Namibian liberation movement - with its multiracial membership - a human face. After Lister left in the mid-80s, starting a new independent newspaper, ‘The Namibian’, Smith (better known as ‘Smittie’) continued to run the Windhoek Observer, challenging authority and refusing to kowtow to either the South African or SWAPO government. The Observer often appeared with blank spaces marked ‘censored’ when he stepped on the South African Defence Force’s toes and was forced to drop many stories. The paper with its strong tabloid element was banned several times, ostensibly for its Back Page where he featured photographs of female models - with the obligatory stars - and reports on people’s sexual dalliances. One anecdote tells how Smith was fined R4000 for one stray pubic hair that was visible on one of the Back Page girls. Smith wondered what the consequences might have been if she had been completely revealed.
Both publications, irrespective of readers’ tastes or political standing, challenged authority and stood up for freedom of press in a time when there was little to be found. Although the days of saucy centrefolds may be over for me, I couldn’t help feeling slightly nostalgic for those teenager days when I came across that old copy of Scope.
(References: Scope, Wikipedia; Windhoek Observer, Wikipedia; Who is ... Hannes Smith?, John Grobler, Mail & Guardian, 13 Feb 1998)
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