Journey to the Kalakuta Republic: A Revolutionary Life Hardcover – March 19, 2026

Journey to the Kalakuta Republic is about my journey from privileged Jewish princess to Rastafarian revolutionary and beyond, a story about searching and finding, sometimes with poetry.I sensed there was more to life but settled for marriage and motherhood. Then I met a Rastafarian journalist from Trinidad via London, a turbulent relationship that changed my life and thinking completely. Michael made me shockingly aware of mid 1970’s racism in Australia and my family, and awakened my activism and inner poetry.When he was expelled from Australia, Immigration informed me they didn’t like smart blacks! Family relationships had shattered and, disillusioned, I followed him to London, in love and on my way to becoming a Rasta revolutionary.We occupied an empty Notting Hill mansion owned by Sheikh Faisal that became the base for a squatters’ organisation, encouraging people to move into a “better class” of squat - a huge threat to the establishment. Police harassment led to our eviction and arrest, attracting international press coverage. Squatting became a criminal, not a civil, offence.Rastafarian mystic spirituality resonated deeply with my liberal Judaism. Its revolutionary thinking, healthy lifestyle, and reggae music touched my soul deeply. Part of Rasta vision is a return to Africa, which influenced our idealistic Exodus from London in 1977 with my 6 year old daughter to hitchhike to South Africa to protest against apartheid. Reaching Nigeria, we met Fela Anikulapo Kuti in his Kalakuta Republic in Lagos. Pan-Africanist revolutionary, Afrobeat superstar and unofficial Black President, Fela’s music was relentless social commentary and criticism.He said as a mixed-race couple we would be killed straight away if we went to South Africa, stay with him in Nigeria and fight with telepathy on the airwaves. So we became reggae ambassadors sharing Rastafarian philosophy, African politics and Pan-Africanism, Fela style. We squatted in a beach house and opened the Marcus Garvey All Ages Free School.Fela was persecuted by the military government and because of our revolutionary ideology and connection with him we were twice imprisoned and escaped, then ultimately expelled from Nigeria. Police welcomed us at the airport in London for skipping bail. I was seven months pregnant and sent to Holloway Prison and Michael to Pentridge,Following my release, I had a son, Zion, who has Down - I call it Up – Syndrome, then my daughter Moriah was born. We left a council flat on a soulless housing estate to squat in an abandoned house in Brixton. I studied ceramics, worked in a health food shop, wrote and sometimes performed poetry.My relationship with Michael deteriorated and became violent so I returned to Sydney and focused my activism on Aboriginal issues and Redfern community’s fight for survival. I produced an interactive CD-Rom about indigenous art and culture. My mother and I had reconciled. She passed away 10 years later and enabled me to live in paradise in NE NSW with my son, who is now a talented and prolific artist. Read more