“The greatest evils the world has ever known have all been carried out by groups of people who maintained that human beings must be controlled,” begins this short video introduction to anarchy.

It’s a misunderstood concept, associated with black bloc violence, chaos and disorder, a word which the corporate media manipulates to suit their agenda. This short explanation of what anarchy actually means and what it really opposes is powerful, using historical facts and film footage to illustrate a key point.

“I call myself an anarchist. When I say that I am an anarchist, I do not mean I wear a Guy Fawkes mask to protest or throw smoke bombs at cop cars. What I am saying that I recognize the evils of the world, I understand who is responsible for them, and I refuse to be complicit.”

“It was not the anarchists who dropped nuclear bombs on innocent civilians,” YouTube user ‘Anarchris’ goes on. “It was not the anarchists who invented the gulag. The anarchists were not responsible for the extermination of the Jews or of the killing fields. We did not enslave the Africans or intern the Japanese. It was not in protest of anarchist atrocities that drove monks to burn themselves alive.”

We are told that without government, there will be blood on the streets. But the facts speak for themselves: throughout history, it is politicians who have sent civilians to die in wars they wanted no part of, forced humans to kill other humans. We’ve got it all wrong, argues Anarchris argues. “Government is chaos.”

“These horrors were carried out by groups of elite who maintain that human beings must be controlled. It is the anarchist who sees this and says, I will not be complicit in your sins. When you come to these realizations, the question is not why choose anarchy, but why choose government?

This article (The Question Is No Longer “Why Choose Anarchy?” The Question Becomes “Why Choose Government?”) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com.

Image Credit: Banksy