By Lincoln DePradine

Toronto clergyman, Trinidad-born Father Dexter Brereton, wants Caribbean people to be more accepting of political differences, and cautions against the “careless adoption of foreign ideologies’’ and of “violence’’ in political speeches.

“The temptation to political violence in speech remains and we have to be careful about that,’’ Reverend Brereton warned last Sunday in a sermon at Philadelphia Seventh Day Adventist Church in Scarborough.

The special “Interfaith Thanksgiving Service’’ was part of the commemorative activities of the 50th anniversary of independence of Grenada, which includes the Grenadine islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.

Independence Day was Wednesday, February 7.

In Ontario on Wednesday, Grenada’s national flag was hoisted at the rotunda at Toronto City Hall. The red, green and gold flag also was lit Wednesday at Brampton’s City Hall clock tower and illuminated at Niagara Falls.

In Grenada, on Monday, a special commemorative EC$50 bill was unveiled. Sir Eric Gairy, the country’s first prime minister, and Maurice Bishop, who was prime minister of the People’s Revolutionary Government from 1979-1883, are featured prominently on the bill.

Brereton’s sermon was preceded by musical renditions, Christian scriptural readings and, for the first time at a Grenada independence anniversary service, a reading from the Quran that was done by well-known broadcaster Mark Strong, a Muslim.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell and his top diplomat in Toronto, Gerry Hopkin, used their messages to commend Grenadians living in Canada and other Diaspora communities.

Grenadians in the Diaspora are “part of the bedrock of our country. Each of you plays a significant role not only in nation building, but also in keeping our culture and heritage alive,’’ Mitchell said in a video message. “I encourage all of you, wherever you are, to envision h next 50 years as we aspire, build and advance as one people.’’

Hopkin, consul general in Toronto, underscored the importance of “valuing every resident, every citizen, every player on the field called Grenada, regardless of his or her team membership, for we are all in the same game, and in the same arena, together’’.

He added that, “to those of you sitting here who continue to support your families back home and to invest in Grenada’s productive sectors – in one way or another – I hereby salute you as nation builders’’.

Brereton, for the most part, emphasized the need of respecting differences and living harmoniously together.

“I am encouraging us to see our political differences not as a sign of confusion and bacchanal,’’ he said. “The fact that we disagree, and we in Grenada disagree often, is not a sign that we are bacchanalists or crabs in a barrel. It is a sign that we have passion and we care about what we love.’’

“We can learn a lot from this phrase, ‘small up’. It evokes, for me, the whole Caribbean experience and gives such a rich message for our living together as Grenadians or, as Caribbean people. We live in small villages, we live on small pieces of rock; our community is small. We have no time for total war. We have to small up. Be nice to be near.’’

The first thing about “small up’’ is that “we have a duty to make ourselves easy to live with’’, said Brereton.

Brereton, commenting on the political climate in the Caribbean, claimed that there’s an “obsession with winning political battles’’.

In many countries, he said, people “have turned politics into a matter of blood and sand’’, and there’s an “impression that some of the leaders want to be right all the time’’.

“They can’t always be right. It is often more important in life to be kind than to be right,’’ Brereton said.