Inevitably this reticence was in part the product of a political climate of fear
and repression. The research was conducted in the final years of the New Order
regime, before the onset of the devastating economic crisis that would bring
an end to Suharto's rule in May of 1998. Despite growing concern about succession
and the 1996 riots over his maneuvers to neutralize an opposition
leader, there was little doubt at the time of these interviews that Suharto and his
regime were firmly entrenched. So, too, were certain authorized versions of Indonesian
history, within which daily life under the Dutch was marginally
placed. When we explained to one former servant's adult granddaughter that
we were interviewing people about the Dutch period, she immediately assumed
we were looking for revolutionary fighters (pej~~nn