After thirty years under President Hosni Mubarak’s iron grip on power, Cairo is alive with activism. In a roundtable earlier this month organized by PolicyMic.com and The Nation and moderated by author Stephen Glain, young Egyptian activists debated some of Egypt’s most pressing issues, including the role and strength of the Muslim Brotherhood, the power of social media in sparking reform and the military’s stranglehold over politics.

In this video, the activists explain that the Western media’s focus on the importance of Islamist parties in the country’s political landscape is dangerously misplaced. According to the activists, the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups doesn’t hold much sway over the Egyptian public at large, and if anything, the wired and cosmopolitan protestors who led the effort to oust Mubarak shows that the Islamist’s influence is on the wain.  As Mohamed Abdelfattah explains, "I wouldn’t vote for the Islamists."

Be sure to also check out the other videos in this series on Egypt’s activists:
Democracy Is a Practical Process
Where Will the Money Come From?
Now I Tweet in Arabic