Irfan,

are you serious about Mohammed Ali? He was a racist, a misgyinist, and a vile immoral man.

He didn't want to worship a "blonde haired blue eyed skinny white man" in Jesus, showing he is nothing but a filthy bigot.

He even hung out with the Black Panthers for crying out loud.

You are a surprise package Irfan. You often make good comments, as with most of this article, yet sometimes appear to be the same as others. You often, here at OLO call people names who don't agree with you instead of defeating their argument. I guess we should be happy that you at least don't issue fatwas on those who disagree like cowardly Muslim leaders.

The only thing I would fault you on for this article is where you tried to make out it's just the Muslim leaders that are like Hilali, which is plainly untrue.

The head of 2ME, Arab radio, said ALL LEbanese Muslims agree with Hilali, but all other Muslims and Lebanese Christians didn't. The Muslims didn't because Islam is divided bitterly on ethnic lines, so they see it as a way mabye for "their own kind", their leader, to gain power.

Come on Irfan, show us where you stand. Organise a protest for the Muslim public to demand hilali step down.

I fear, if you don't, that Muslims will never be looked at the same way again. After all, if you guys don't want to protest to have him removed, it says most are misoginists who think white women are whores.

Show us how it doesn't say that.

I'm just getting frustrated reading at some of the comments relating to to the Hilali and having him deported. Deporting him is not the solution, it will not correct the damage he has created, and is as effective as sweeping the brocken shards of a vase under a rug (shards still stick out and will affect people). This solution is a waste of time and breath.

I do believe some corrective action does need to take place though for his comments, as he stands as a leader in his community, and should take responsibility for his actions/sayings. Afterall we wouldnt think twice in taking corrective action and wouldnt stand for one of our political leaders to make such a comment, lost in translation or not (which btw is a lame excuse)

Nnnngn. Reading these comments can be a tad frustrating...

Firstly - regardless of much you hate someone's comments, it doesn't mean you can just deport them. Deride, ridicule, argue, do what you will. Just don't censor. When did we become an nation of kneejerk neo-nationalists?

Muslimhater - your name indicates your stance. It's pretty clear you're not participating in this discussion to be enlightened.

Benjamin - you're calling for Irfan to rally against the sheik. Very well - I'm calling for christians to rally for the sacking, (shall I throw in a call for deportation?) of Pastor Danny Nalliah, who has indicated that the Christian Right should take an increased role in Australian politics.

I'd also like similar rallies organised against the pope and vocal christian pastors who condemn the islam faith as one of violence. I'm sure there are plenty. While we're at it, go for the christians who've made similar comments regarding immodestly dressed women.

Dee - the true agenda of Islam?

Islam is a split faith. Like christianity. Is the agenda of the christian offshoots such as the Exclusive Brethren or Mormons or Seventh Day Adventists or Jehovah's Witnesses the same as those of Catholics, Protestants, Lutherans or Anglicans?

Are you referring to the Shia, the Sunni, perhaps the Bahai? Is your target the extremist fundamentalists, or the 100 million odd muslims in Indonesia, many of whom actually practice a pretty damn liberal strand of Islam?

Mickijo "We have never had so much trouble as we do now."

What is this trouble? Is this a new issue, or is it an age-old one? If by trouble you mean intolerant religious bigots spouting garbage, that's always been around. If the problem is terrorism, ditto, and the casualties of war are far greater than the casualties of terrorism anyway. To this statement I say, we've simply never had as many people as we do now.

All in all, what can I say except calm down people. Reign in that hysteria before you create a situation we should really be worried about.

One has become disgusted that our democratically valuable OLO should allow so much time to be spent on what was uttered by an obviously undiplomatic Islamic cleric.

One could also include the term small-minded, but really - the small-mindedness is now mostly being shown in the majority of Posts to be read in this exercise.

Our relations with the Islamic world are bad enough these days without making them worse through blowing up rather isolated spasms of individual half-wittedness.

Possibly a worrying weakness of our OLO, is that there is no way of calling our so-called online discussions to order. There is no way an elected chairperson can operate.

To be sure rather than letting gasoline be poured on small discussive fires, maybe the main theses could be checked more?

One international hornet’s nest that has turned up lately in the Guardian newspaper, is the accusation that us Western Christians don’t care a hoot what happens to the Iraqi Christians, which are said to have comprised close to two million, but now under pressure mostly from the Shi-tes have mostly fled to Syria, some of them captured and tortured, . a female teacher having been decapitated.

There is an earlier Post in this exercise placed in by myself, which from study tries to suggest the reasons for Western neglect of the Iraqi Christians. And naturally, of course, though the Brits are also accused, the Americans will be expected to shoulder most of the blame.

Personally, however, the feeling is that the main targets should be our Western Christian churches, for surely they must all know about the present Iraqi Christian heartache.

So all you interested OLO’s, it is suggested that you accordingly adjust your usually accurate sights for a time.

you know these muslems are a worry.... they haven't come to terms with modernity's feminism yet .... what about working class rights, and stem cell research and the elephant in the room - glbt rights?

Bog Irish,

Distinctly Ditto these damn christians!

Red Neck Bible thumper G W Bush vetoing stem cell research.
Decidedly dodgy ratio of male to female general managers and CEO's in our society and the rest of western 'christian' democracies (and everywhere else).
John Howard doing all he can to sway the balance in determining wage structures for the common man over to big business and management in enterprise by union bashing and enforcing many-on-one contract negotiations.
And when was the last time you met an elephant in this country - let alone in the same room?!

Lousy bunch of Christian anti-elephant bigots!

I'ts all about self-control, not remote control, people.