We in the Caribbean are all too familiar with how easy it is for friends of the USA to become enemies.

Many Caribbean leaders have seen the tides suddenly turn against them when it was no longer politically prudent for the US to be seen as supporting a particular regime.

Like Hosni Mubarak is finding out in Egypt, it’s a lonely road to walk without the US as friends, especially when you need them most.

The US has basically abandoned Mubarak in the light of the popular uprising in his country, pressuring him to step aside and allow “the will of the people” to take place.

Strange that this is only happening now. This is a country that has been run by a totalitarian regime for decades, with Egyptians living under emergency law since 1967. Mubarak, like his predecessors, has successfully clamped down on all forms of opposition creating what has been a completely undemocratic society with what can only be called “mock elections” every so often, yet Egypt has enjoyed top dollar rewards from the US. It runs second in the region only to Israel in terms of the amount of US aid it asks for and gets, and a lot of Made-in-the-USA weaponry has been shipped to the country to prop up its army.

Why? Because Mubarak was seen as an ally to the west, mainly because it refused to join its neighbours in threatening Israel, and as such has been labeled as “stable.”

Sounds familiar? It should, especially to our Guyanese and Haitian readers who saw the US prop up oppressive dictatorships in their countries in the name of “stability” and “democracy.”

Now that the people of Egypt have decided for themselves that enough is enough, especially with the Mubarak government doing little to ease their poverty and high food prices, the US is abandoning ship, leaving Mubarak to go down with it.

Like many failed dictators, Mubarak is finding out that having the US for a friend is the equivalent of having a “frenemy.”

The real problem in Egypt, however, is not so much Mubarak’s failure to provide a decent standard of living for his people, but the continuing failure of the global community to ensure food security for vulnerable countries.

The toppling of the government in Tunisia, which preceded the Egypt uprising, was mainly because of soaring food prices.

As our Jean Hodgkinson wrote in last week’s Camera, this is just the start of things to come for countries where arable land is scarce, and which are dependent on imports to meet their population’s food demands.

Hodge noted that we may not be feeling it as much in North America, because we still have vast amounts of land being planted to supply us with food.

We wonder, though, how protected our former homelands are from such strife, and we’re also wondering how you, our reader, would react if such uprisings start happening in the Caribbean over a lack of food, or soaring food prices.

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