What if Eugene was just a victim;
A boy gathered from the red earth of Abba
And carried into another man's dream?

Father Ben found him there,
Bright as harmattan sunlight,
And called it grace -
The way men name a fire
Before they teach it what to burn.

He fed him scriptures seasoned with England,
Taught him prayers that tasted of forgetting.
Each Amen, a small burial.
Each blessing, a shovel of earth
Upon an ancestral grave.

Soon the gods of his Fathers became demons.
The folklores of Abba became darkness.
Even Papa -
Old keeper of shrines,
Old guardian of memory -
Became something to outgrow,
Someone to disown
Except he gave in too.

And Eugene learned well.
Too well.
For the cleverest children
Make the finest converts.

In England, the lesson flowered.
Cathedrals rose like mountains,
Their shadows long enough to cover a continent.
Every bell rang the same message:
"You are fortunate to be rescued.
You are fortunate to be remade.
You are fortunate to become less yourself."

So he peeled Africa from his spirit
Like bark from a tree
Until nothing remained but skin —

Black skin stretched over
A conquered mind.

Tell me,
What chance did a boy have
When God arrived speaking English
And every road to heaven pointed north?

What chance did he have
When holiness wore a white face
And salvation carried
the scent of Europe?

No.
Eugene was not born hating his reflection.

Someone placed that hatred there,
Quiet as communion wine,
drop by drop,
Until it tasted like faith.

And perhaps that is the saddest miracle:
Not that he abandoned his father,
Nor that he wounded those he loved,
But that the mission succeeded.

A child was taken from Abba
And returned as proof.

Proof that a man can lose his homeland
without ever leaving his body.

Proof that conquest
Does not always arrive with guns.

Sometimes
It arrives with a Bible
And leaves carrying a boy away. Maybe Eugene was just a victim.

(Refer to Purple hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie)