Rhodesian discipline and punish

I was supposed to be an extremely conservative young lady, very oriented toward the family and warm and deferential -- conservative.  Oh, and dutiful.   I have the opposite personality, which would have meant trouble enough, except that my parents (especially my father) also attached profound importance to bringing me up all Bible reading and unreasoning.   I'm convinced this was because of the war and what it cost him.  This was how the war has started:

"We have struck a blow for the preservation of justice, civilization, and Christianity; and in the spirit of this belief we have this day assumed our sovereign independence. God bless you all."  http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1965Rhodesia-UDI.html

So, Christian belief and a certain idea of "civilization" became a huge factor in my parents' consciousness, whether they were aware of that.

When we migrated I was fifteen.  That was when the battle started to keep me on the straight and narrow.  I had entered a society that was much more liberal in many ways, and I'm sure this represented the "communism" my father had fought against, in the war, to keep outside of our borders.

As a funny aside that confirms my thesis, about five years ago, I came across a badly written  blurb on a free publishing site a while back.   The writing was by an ex-Rhodesian, who spoke of "Communism hovering on our borders".  Actually, the phrasing was worse than this, something more clumsy and funnier.   So amusing was it that I used the sentence in my Facebook update and immediately some guy living in Johannesburg (in exile from Zimbabwe's poor economy) popped up in chat and said, "It's me!  I'm the communism lingering on the border!"   This was how I got introduced to the members of the Zimbabwean Revolutionary Youth movement, who turned out to be two in number.

It seemed to some people, including myself, that I may have become the betrayer of the war and everything "Rhodesia" stood for, the more I adapted to liberal ways.  My parents waged a really strong psychological battle against me.   It was quite extreme, involving physical "discipline" at times, but mostly chasing me around and attempting to undermine my self-esteem by telling me I was "grotty".

Such is life.