User:Bunyip999

Australian man, Social Democratist, I believe in information that is honest, factual and truthful. I believe in God but not organised religions in the 21st Century. I respect others beliefs both religious and ideological, but that does not necessarily imply agreement on my part, I will consider all opinions without bias as much as I can reasonably be expected to within my cultural and educational constraints.

I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in the early 20th Century, to white middle class Australian parents.

My parents decide to leave South Africa and return to Australia in late 1959, the South African government was becoming more and more authoritarian. My parents, especially my mother was becoming very concerned with her children's ideological development. While at pre school, basic primary school and from limited social interactions that were mostly supervised by by mother or by her mother, my maternal grandmother who lived many years with our family in Johannesburg. I learnt basic human empathy and the beginnings of the word "respect" for other humans.

We returned to Australia in late 1959 and lived temporarily at my grandmothers house in Malvern, Victoria until my parents were able to find the basic necessities of life for our family in Australia. A house, a station wagon car and schools, primary for myself and second brother and high school for my oldest brother.

I am now in my mid sixties and fascinated by modern anthropology, societal change and view points. I have been extremely lucky in my life, I have never been touched personally by War, apart from my fathers sparse recollections of his involvement within the Second World War 1939 to 1945. My father whilst living in Johannesburg and running the family owned wholesale electrical business, enlisted, signed up in 1939 with the South African Armoured Card Division. Later in 1942 he and his small division was captured in North Africa by Rommel s forces and then handed over to Mussolini and transported across the Mediterranean seato Italy to be incarcerated in the Fossoli Italian Concentration Camp. Maintained by the Nazi's for Allied Forces captured in North Africa. The Fossoli Concentration Camp, like so many of the Nazi German Concentration camps, starved their prisoners, my father whilst he was there, was no exception and suffered with the other prisoners horribly. Fortunately Fossoli was not an extermination camp and my father would only recount stories to myself when I was a teenager and under pressure from myself.