I first met Mike when we were active in student politics at the University of Botswana (UB). I believe we also served in the editorial board of the UB Scope together. But most importantly, we were members of Mass, the Botswana National Front (BNF) student wing. Mass was formed out of the Botswana Socialist Youth (BSY) and Botswana Student Council (BSC). The merger, by these two groupings was necessary to contain and confront the enemy as a united force.
Members of Mass read a lot of political literature and studied philosophy. Cde Mike was not an anarchist nor an opportunist. I believe that his study of progressive politics and philosophy shaped him. Cyril Smith, a long time Troskyist, argued that any struggle begins with philosophy. It is won and lost on that front. To buttress his point, Smith argues that even if Trotsky had triumphed over Stalin, the results would have been the same as the Bolsheviks, especially after Lenin had died in January 1924, he did not have the philosophical basis for them to take the revolution further.
