ABSTRACT
These prefatory remarks cited from a book claiming to document the details of the May 1998 event highlight specific questions raised in the highly acrimonious public debates that followed the tragedy. More pertinent to this chapter, the authors of the book have justified its publication by defending the need for a collective memory and above all the need for historical truth about the May 1998 events. Their defence of historical truth in turn highlights a neglected subtext that has been marginalized by a highly publicized and acrimonious contest for historical truth. This subtext concerns the meta-discourses about historical truths that frame the points of contention. This chapter examines the social production of historical ‘truths’, ‘non-truths’ and ‘untruths’ about the May 1998 events in Jakarta. It will discuss the notions of truth circulating in contemporary discourses about the May 1998 events and especially about the May rapes. Although I am dealing in general with the May 1998 events, I will focus on the May rapes controversies for the reason that they have brought out issues of truth and credibility more starkly. This chapter will demonstrate and critique the efficacy, legitimacy and limitations of these notions of truth and their deployment in hierarchies of credibility and significance surrounding narratives about the May events. As such, it does not offer a blow-by-blow factual account of what really happened in the fateful month of May, but it does question the authority offered by the factual account.
