International Journal of Social Science Studies Vol.1, No. 2; October 2013 ISSN 2324-8033 E-ISSN 2324-8041 Published by Redfame Publishing URL: http://ijsss.redfame.com 154 Assessing the Prevalence of Extreme Middle-Eastern Ideologies among Some New Immigrants to Canada Wagdy Loza 1 , Stella Bhawanie 2 , David Nussbaum 3,4 , & Artur Maximenco 3 1 Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada 2 Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, United States of America 3 University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada 4 Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences, Whitby, Canada Correspondence: Wadgy Loza, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, K7M 6S6, Canada. Tel: 1-613-634-0227. E-mail: wml1@sympatico.ca Received: May 16, 2013 Accepted: June 13, 2013 Available online: June 29, 2013 doi:10.11114/ijsss.v1i2.166 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.11114/ijsss.v1i2.166 Abstract The goal of this research was to investigate whether new immigrants from the extended Middle-Eastern countries differ from each other on issues related to extreme Middle-Eastern religious beliefs based on their religious identification. The Assessment and Treatment of Radicalization Scale (ARTS; Loza, 2007a), a scale designed to assess extreme religious beliefs originating from the Middle-East, was administered to a sample of 91 participants who had recently immigrated to Canada from Pakistan. The sample was comprised of Muslims (the majority of the participants) and a small number of Christians from the same background. Due to the small number of the Christian participants, Christian responses from previous studies were included in the present comparisons. Results indicated significant differences between the religious groups and were consistent with previously obtained results. Current results also support the use of ATRS as a reliable and valid measure to help with risk assessment for beliefs supporting violence. Keywords: assessing, radicalizations, extreme middle-eastern ideologies, immigrants to Canada 1. Introduction Coverage of extremist political, social views and associated terrorism originating in the Middle-East has been a stable diet in the media for several years. Middle-Eastern terrorism rests upon many factors but the most potent, and we argue, paradoxically a neglected factor is the extreme belief ideologies that play a central role in radicalizing the population into believing these ideologies and in rare cases manifesting them in terrorist acts (see Loza, 2007b for a review of these factors and ideologies). Middle-Eastern scholars have opined that the prevalence of religious thinking and ideologies in Middle-Eastern countries is paving the way toward more extremism and terrorism and is an essential stage toward building the terrorist mind (El-Bana, 2008; Yaseen, 2007a). In the same vein, it is reported that extreme religious ideologies play a central role in radicalizing young Muslims globally, recruiting and indoctrinating them into the terrorist ideology, and eventually asking them to commit terrorist acts (Ibrahim, 1980, 1988; Isam, 2006; Schwind, 2005). In fact, extreme belief ideologies are both associated with, and reliably precede violent acts perpetrated by Middle-Eastern terrorists (Pipes, 2008) and the idea that present day terrorism is the result of the prevalence of ideologies that look down upon others and consider them infidels (Shbekshy, 2004). As a result of these ideologies being widely taught, negative attitudes against non-Muslim culture are apparent in Muslim countries (Littman, 2005; Manji, 2003; Sayyed, 2005) and appear to be spreading into segments of Muslim populations that did not previously adhere to these extremist views. There are concerns that the extreme Middle-Eastern religious ideologies are prevalent and growing among the Muslim communities in Europe (Bawer, 2006; Wicker, 2007; Yaseen, 2007b) and other western countries. Unfortunately, the prevalence of these ideologies may have contributed to the home grown terrorism in the western countries. Examples of these influences are the bombings in Madrid and London; the murder of Van brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by International Journal of Social Science Studies