Shafaq News – Baghdad

In a narrow workshop in Baghdad’s Shawaqa district, the smell of wood smoke still clings to the air as Usta Firas bends over a small kiln, easing a rough wooden handle into shape with heat and long habit.

He has done this work for nearly 40 years, but these days the rhythm of the craft is broken less by customers than by the quiet outside his door.

Not long ago, men came here for shovel and hoe handles made to last, shaped for Iraq’s soil and daily labor. Today, most walk past carrying factory-made tools bought elsewhere, cheaper and lighter, stacked high in hardware shops across the city. The shift is not about taste or tradition; it is about survival in a market flooded with imports.

Since 2003, Iraq has kept its borders largely open, allowing foreign goods to enter with few restrictions. For consumers, that has meant lower prices, but for small producers like Firas, it has meant competing with mass-produced items he cannot hope to match on cost. Each handle he makes begins with thick branches brought in from areas around Baghdad, then heated, straightened, shaped, and smoothed by hand.

The process produces a durable tool, but by the time it is finished, the cost can exceed 2,000 dinars, while imported alternatives sell for about half that.

Laborers and farmers, squeezed by falling purchasing power, increasingly choose what is cheapest even if it breaks within days. Firas shrugs when he says this; durability, he knows, no longer pays. What once marked pride in workmanship has become a disadvantage in a market that rewards disposability.

Meanwhile, older craftsmen have abandoned the trade, unable to absorb losses or secure steady demand. Younger Iraqis show little interest in learning skills that promise neither stability nor protection. Knowledge once passed quietly from master to apprentice is fading, not through decree or disaster, but through neglect.

The decline of this small workshop reflects a larger problem in Iraq’s non-oil economy, where domestic manufacturing and informal industries have steadily weakened while dependence on imports has deepened. Oil revenues keep the state afloat, but they do little to shield local producers from global competition or to encourage homegrown industry.

For now, Firas keeps working, straightening another handle then setting it aside, unsure if it will sell. Without policies to regulate imports or support small crafts, trades like his are likely to disappear, leaving behind empty workshops and a city that remembers making things long after it has stopped doing so.