抄録
In contemporary political controversies occurring in Myanmar, “National Politics” and “Party Politics” are frequently used both by the military government and prodemocracy forces.
The first part of this article analyizes the utilisation of these two terms; which have been used by the State and Order Restoration Council (and now its successor, the State Peace and Developement Council) in order to legitimize military intervention in Myanmar politics. Through this analysis, this author makes the following three points.
First, the military leaders insist that national politics are distinctry different from party politics. For them, while party politics primarily pursues the interests of one party, national politics pursues national causes which are Myanmar's true national interests going beyond those of each party. Secondly, military leaders believe that the real embodiment of national politics has been only the military since national independance. Finally, military leaders believe that the content of national causes should be determined by military leaders only.
This article views such beliefs by military leaders as not only a rebuttal to criticism leveled against them by pro-democracy forces, but also a revelation of the historical formation of their structure of conciousness. Thus, the latter part of this article focuses on the prosess of the military's dichotomization of politics and argues that the period of General Ne Win's Caretaker Government of 1958-59 was vitally important in forming this polemic.
