Protagonists
Hamilton Naki
Hamilton Naki was born in 1926 in Centani, a village in Transkei. Transkei lies in the Southeast and still today belongs to the poorest regions of South Africa. As a young boy Naki was fascinated by the organs that were laid open whenever a sheep was butchered. But as a black child in a country that defined its black population as inferior, he had no chance to develop this fascination further.
His path was prescribed through the system. After eight years of schooling, only two possibilities existed for him: breed sheep or migrate to Cape Town. Hamilton chose the second path. In his case this meant not the vacation resort basking before the sea with Table Mountain at its back, but the township Langa, which sprawls across the plain behind the mountain and acts as a retention basin for black laborers. Like most of the black natives Naki went to Langa alone. In Cape Town he found a position as a gardener at the Groote Schuur Hospital, where he tended the tennis courts. Doggedly he worked his way up to become a medical assistant in the animal laboratory, in which Christian and his brother Marius transplanted canine hearts.
Naki distinguished himself through dexterity and exactitude. He had a very specific gift. While Barnard achieved fame and honor, Naki continued to work in the hospital, where he—and not Barnard—instructed the more than 3000 physicians who made the pilgrimage from all over the world to Cape Town, in order to be initiated in the art of organ transplantation. He did not receive a raise in wage and continued to be paid the salary of a gardener. He lived in a room in Langa and provided for 24 relatives in his hometown with his lean wage.
He became famous after Barnard’s death. In recognition of this contribution and for his role leading up to the first heart transplant, the University of Cape Town conferred an honorary degree on Naki, the first time in its history it had ever done so for someone without an academic background. Thabo Mbeki awarded him this most important national order. Naki died last year having had only a short time to enjoy his new-found fame.
Christian Bangard
Christian Barnard died in 2001 at the age of 78. He grew up in South Africa in the 20’s as the son of a poor parson in Beaufort West, a quiet town called Karoo. His family were typically Afrikaans: they worked hard, the children ran barefoot over the «veld» (field), and they prayed at every meal. As a youngster, Christian Barnard appeared interested in the insides of living creatures. He always enjoyed telling the story of the first time he dissected a beetle.
He moved to Cape Town, where with discipline and ambition he studied medicine. Thanks to his good grades he received a scholarship for further training in the United States. From there he returned with a going-away present, which would influence his destiny: a heart-lung machine. Such a machine was crucial for a heart transplantation.
Around the world at that time there was a race to see who would be the first to succeed in transplanting a human heart. Christian Barnard and his brother Marius gained the necessary experience in an animal laboratory, where they—with a team of black assistants—transplanted dozens of canine hearts.
Barnard’s victory in that race was owed to a mixture of luck and knowledge. Barnard had an ideal patient, and at the right moment he received a compatible donor heart from a young woman who had died in an car accident. The South African legal regulations—generous in contrast to those in the United States—allowed the transplantation. No one knew of the operation at first; the press was only informed on the following day. The second transplantation, which followed soon after, sparked even greater excitement. Barnard became a star over night! In the ensueing years he devoted himself less to research than to the amenities of being famous. He appeared to become a true ladies’ man and married four times.
With his pioneering act he restored the internationally-ostracized Apartheid government to glamor and recognition. It is difficult to reduce Barnard’s relationship to Apartheid to a common denominator. On numerous occasions, he voiced critical opinions regarding the individual aspects of Apartheid and fought against racial segregation in hospitals: yet at the same time he let himself be roped in by the government in the 1970’s to serve as an unofficial ambassador for image bolstering purposes.
Only after 1994, after Nelson Mandela had made Apartheid a thing of the past, did he — as so many «hardcore Afrikaans»—alter his posture. He spoke openly in front of cameras about how gifted his black assistant Hamilton Naki had been, and even that he had been better able to stitch and transplant than he himself.
A cardiac centre in Cape Town, bearing his name, and a museum in his hometown of Beaufort West stand in remembrance of him today. Christian Barnard and the transplant operation have been the subject of numerous books and films. It seems that his contradictory personality has remained an unending source of fascination.
Dirk de Villiers
Dirk de Villiers is a personality whose life is reflected in his furrowed visage and the sparkle in his eyes. At one time he owned eight homes and a motorboat. Due to poor investments he lost nearly all of his wealth: today he lives modestly. He calls himself a «die-hard Afrikaan», and says that at the time he supported the idea of Apartheid, although he also had black friends.
He looks a bit like a seaman. This is no coincidence: before his career as an actor and director he travelled as a marine engineer. Dirk de Villiers met Christian Barnard in the mid-60’s. The two were on vacation together when the news arrived that a donor heart had been found. He was also there when Christian Barnard was overwhelmed by fame. He tells of the ethical dichotomy that the successful operation meant for Barnard. As early as 1967, de Villiers had wanted to make a motion picture about Barnard, but the idea was never realized. Barnard was too unsure then whether what he had done was right. Following the revolutionary heart operation de Villiers did not see much of Barnard anymore. Only when the latter built his vacation home next door to de Villiers’ did their paths cross again. Then, in 1996, de Villiers recalled his dream to film Barnard’s life. The groundwork was laid with a long exclusive interview with Barnard, in which Barnard made known his admiration for Hamilton Naki’s surgical talent. Although he owns the exclusive rights for that footage, de Villiers has until today still not been able to make a film – neither about Barnard nor about Hamilton Naki, whom he claims to have «discovered» after Barnard’s death.
The old man’s frustration is evident. The wealth he amassed as one of the most successful directors and producers of the Apartheid era (he shot and produced the first TV-films for the black population) is lost. Dirk de Villiers currently resides in a simple apartment in Cape Town and runs his production company from a modest office. At the beginning of this year he nearly succumbed to complications resulting from an operation. Until a few weeks ago he walked with a cane. But he is tough, and when he speaks one could listen for hours.
De Villiers conducted the first long interviews with Naki at his home and in the hospital in the post-apartheid era. The archival material de Villiers possesses, for which we have the exclusive rights, is vast: from a long, exclusive interview with Barnard before he died, a young Barnard still at University, scenes in the animal laboratory with Naki, to Naki standing next to Nelson Mandela receiving the South African Cross of Merit.