The combination of an American trade embargo and Cuban's ridiculous socialism creates: the weirdest cell phone culture in the world. Cubans are cell-phone nutty, but the cost of operating the phones is so high -- 35 minutes of use would roughly wipe out the average Cuban's salary -- that no one actually talks on the phones.
Many Cubans don't like to give out their cellphone numbers, for fear they will be called...
While I don't like to give out my cell phone number for exactly the same reason, it's a preservation-of-sanity thing rather than a preservation-of-money thing.
A Cuban with a BlackBerry explained that like the United States and Europe, Cuban society will be changed by the cellphone. "We will be reachable," said the man, who was sharing a glass of homemade wine with friends on New Year's Eve. "But we don't want to answer."
It's not unusual for Cubans to save for years to buy a cell phone, only to have to wait years longer to pay the astronomical ($65) connection fee.
Standing in a two-hour line at the ETECSA shop at the Miramar Trade Center, a young woman said the Samsung cellphone she has had for more than a year was a gift from an aunt who lives in Spain. "I used it as an alarm clock," she explained, "while I saved my money to activate the line."
The costs of the phones are so high for two reasons. First, the Cuban government holds the national phone monopoly and doesn't have the cash to set up a robust infrastructure, so it's not trying to encourage increased cell phone use. And, second, Cuba is barely connected with the rest of the world. International calls have to be routed through an Italian satellite, since there's no undersea cable to the U.S., and cost between $2.70 and $5.85 a minute. All of this has to be paid in what is called "convertible pesos," a form of hard currency distinct from the communist funny money in which most Cubans are paid.
I think this is as fine an example of why we should end the trade embargo as I've ever seen. Here we have an oppressed people hungry for contact with the outside world -- the kind of contact that always decreases the power of oppressors -- and we're doing everything we can to make sure that contact doesn't happen. We should be flooding Cuba with free cell phones and urging Cubans to call anyone in the world, and while we're at it we're going to send thousands of college kids on Spring Break down to show them what they're missing.
But no. Instead, we're stuck with a 60-year old embargo that has never come close to accomplishing its goal, and we can't change it because a small minority of embittered voters in a politically significant state continue to hold a generations-long grudge.
