Winning Hearts & Minds: Why Real Change Starts From the Belly Up
Winning hearts and minds is structurally impossible in communities where basic needs — food, shelter, physical security — remain unmet. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is not merely a psychology model; it is a conflict prevention framework. Ideology, loyalty, and moral persuasion sit at the top of the pyramid. Hunger, homelessness, and fear sit at the bottom. You cannot reach the top without climbing from the base. This is the founding principle of Kubair Shirazee’s Peace Through Prosperity initiative: lasting influence begins from the belly up.
Winning hearts and minds (WHAM) is an ideal of influence that aspires to be utilised in the stead of military action — but in certain instances is employed in conjunction with the use of force. In the ideal, however, one side seeks to prevail not by superior force, but by making emotional or intellectual appeals to sway supporters of an opposing or divergent side. This is not a new concept and has been tried out in the field from the Malayan Emergency (with success) to Afghanistan with mixed results.
Why Winning Hearts and Minds Starts With Maslow
Ideologies, attitudes, morality and loyalty sit higher in Maslow’s Pyramid of needs than food, shelter and security. Winning hearts and minds is only possible when approached from the belly up. It is Maslow. It is simple.
To make it simpler still: no one can win the heart and mind of an individual who is impoverished and struggling to meet the basic needs of food, shelter and security for him/herself and his/her family. Unless and until the basic needs of the impoverished social class are addressed, reaching hearts and minds is going to be a tall order — rendering winning them over near impossible.
The connection between economic exclusion and radicalisation is well-documented. UNDP’s framework on preventing violent extremism identifies unemployment, limited livelihood choices, and social marginalisation as primary drivers of the journey toward extremism. The US Department of Defense has published strategic research reaching the same conclusion: building a path to peace requires first satisfying Maslow’s foundational needs. Countering violent extremism through persuasion, ideology, or appeal alone — without addressing basic needs — is a strategy built on sand. Any serious attempt at winning hearts and minds must begin one level lower.
From Belly Up: Enterprise as a Tool for Preventing Violent Extremism
It is with this premise that Peace Through Prosperity approaches reaching hearts and minds from the belly up — by empowering the generationally poor, the displaced, those most vulnerable to recruitment by ideology or coercion by extremists, with the ability to build a better future by their own hands.
Peace Through Prosperity provides and promotes an entrepreneurial approach to winning hearts and minds by engaging with the bottommost rung of the enterprise ladder in society. The underlying premise is that petty crime, more serious criminal undertakings, and acts of terrorism can be largely addressed — if not eradicated — by the creation of opportunities, personal security, and wealth in society.
Empowering the Disenfranchised — The Peace Through Prosperity Approach
We believe in helping those who help themselves: with knowledge, skills and resources so that they are empowered to build a better future. Livelihoods for peace is not a slogan — it is a mechanism. When conflict-affected communities gain access to enterprise and economic alternatives, the grievances that extremist groups exploit begin to lose their grip.
To sway supporters and sympathisers of extremism we need to provide disenfranchised, displaced communities — those affected by conflict or in contact with its ideology — with alternative safety nets and opportunities to better their lot. Basic needs first, from Maslow’s order: food, shelter, security. Winning hearts and minds second. Always in that order.