A glimpse of the Workers' Party

WHEN Yee Jenn Jong told his parents he would contest in the 2011 general election, his father's stunned response was: "So the PAP invited you?"

It would never have crossed the elder Yee's mind that his son was going to run for an opposition party, nor would he have welcomed it. Having lived through the tough years of Singapore's struggle with the communists in the 1960s, people of his generation were, as Mr Yee says in his book Journey In Blue, "so cautious about politics".

This attitude has raised many mainstream Singaporeans to be generally apolitical and to play things safe. They shunned people who opposed the government and the ruling People's Action Party (PAP). Opposition parties were seen as bad, dangerous and disruptive to the existing order which brought them a relatively good life.