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Right To Kill Right To Make Live Analysis

Decent Essays

In his work “Right to Kill, Right to Make Live” Takashi Fujitani compares and contrasts the Japanese treatment of colonialized Koreans leading up to World War II with the American treatment of the Japanese residents following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This work highlights how both the Japanese and the Americans treated the Koreans and Japanese Americans, respectively, and offers several different viewpoints. Thus, this work is exceptionally important and provides incredible insight into both cultures and the harsh reality of wartime. Additionally, Fujitani also explains how the Korean and Japanese populations are still influenced today.
The Japanese treated the Koreans harshly prior to the Japanese going to war with China. However, once …show more content…

Essentially, the Japanese and Americans exercised their power over the Koreans and Japanese by providing basic life essentials and providing for them. Both governments cared for the overall welfare of the populations, despite having “despised” them prior to the necessity for soldiers in wartime. Fujitani explains that Foucault mentioned that “This bio-power is a ‘power that exerts a positive influence on life, that endeavors to administer, optimize and multiply it, subjecting it to precise controls and comprehensive regulations’” (Fujitani 14). Both governments were seemingly kind to the “despised populations” by providing necessities for life, but only once the “despised populations” showed themselves as an asset for the government. This idea of “bio-power” accurately encompasses the actions taken during wartime.
Throughout the work, Fujitani draws evidence from, and references, a plethora of different sources that add validity to his statements and accounts of not only what the Japanese and United States did, but also why they acted the way they did. In a time of war, both countries took different actions that were not readily understood. Japan …show more content…

Fujitani does not solely describe the cruelty exhibited by the Japanese and the Americans; he includes positive measures that were taken by both as well. Fujitani claims that “A historically responsible and empirically sound critique of wartime racism in these two nation-state-based empires cannot simply deny their life-enhancing efforts, but must somehow account for the uneasy fit between what can only be recognized as their gross cruelty toward minority and colonial subjects and their apparent concern for the life, reproduction, welfare, and sometimes even happiness of these same peoples” (Fujitani 13). The paradox that exists is dutifully acknowledged as Japan and the United States are not treating the minority populations with complete respect, but consequently, respect them out of necessity.
How the United States and Japan integrated “previously despised populations into their nations in unprecedented ways, while at the same time denouncing racial discrimination and even considering these peoples as part of the national populations and, as such, deserving of life, welfare, and happiness” (Fujitani

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