Is it ≠Namra or Namra?

Sara Kasim

I began to question if anything is ever truly unique after hearing so much about counterfeit things, individuals, political parties and flags.

My main issue is that I don’t fully get what counterfeit is.

I can’t tell the difference between fake and cheap, legal and illegal, or NEFF and EFF.

Let me demonstrate how far off I am.

What if Namra is also a counterfeit of the Nama word ≠namra which actually refers to whistling?

But here goes ≠namra on a rampage to eliminate other fake items.

Hapo is it /namra, ≠namra, //namra or something else? May the real Namas please educate me.

The whole counterfeit affair started when a Swapo senior claimed the Namibian flag was a copy of the Swapo party flag.

He neglected to mention that the Swapo flag is a forgery of the Republic of Azerbaijan’s flag, too. However, it will undoubtedly be defended and compared to another African country, such as Gambia.

When Pascal Lee, a former Nasa research engineer, developed a tricolor flag for Mars in 1999, he is reported to have imitated the Swapo party flag colors, too.

Is anything here real?

That bull at the town entrance of Gobabis is fake and it does not do a good job either. None of the kids born at Gobabis look like it.

Right now, someone somewhere is screaming: “No, that is not the case. That is not the definition of counterfeit!”

It makes no difference to me.

For the time being, counterfeit and ‘counterfake’ may not be synonymous, but we await further clarification.

Especially here in Namibia, where ≠namra officials burn counterfeit Adidas-branded clothing and yet arrive at work in a Manchester United t-shirt from the hustlers at Metro’s entrance in Kleine Kuppe.

You know what else could be fake?

The Brazilian hair that many female politicians seem to favour is actually Bolivian or from Peru. That too is counter-something.

Well, we all know it’s fake when we see it, but let me just add here that it is also a known fact that Putian in China is the capital of fake products. Some of these politicians and pastors have either been there or come from there.

As you can see, I’m probably doing everything wrong, but that’s not my issue.

Blame it on ≠namra, who, instead of playing the tough new sheriff in town, should have started educating me.

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