SIA slapping incident

I was browsing through archives or newspaper articles recently and came across that article involving the SIA 'slapping incident'. Just for re-cap, you can view the article here.

Last I heard was that they settled outside of court and it had been treated by SIA as a private matter.

Many people have their different viewpoints on this matter. Some might view it as unjust. They might ask if treating this as a 'private matter' is actually fair? We all know that this incident is considered a case of battery and assault, and that it has cause the SIA stewardess humiliation. If someone was caught in public assaulting another person, will that person be let go of without being pressed for charges? As i see it, its highly unlikely. So why was Mdm Tan ( the rich man's wife who assaulted the air stewardess) allowed to settle this matter out of court? Is it because of status? In an article it states that her husband, Mr Wong, sits in one of the subsidiaries of Singapore Airlines and is one of Singapore's richest man. Is inequality happening because of high status and class? If Mr Wong had not been of such high status, would his wife have been let off this easily? What about the stewardess's distress after the incident? It is a highly embarrassing situation to get slapped by another woman for 'talking' to her husband. What is the big deal with 'talking' anyway? Mdm Tan had to have been a very insecure person in that case.

Of course, we do not know in details what had been going on that that particular moment. We can only read about it, but we cannot judge and give our reasons why Mdm Tan had behaved this way. Maybe there was a little more to just 'talking' that we don't know of. Many times couples fight because they do not realize what kind of signals and gestures they are giving out. The male might just been helping another girl out of a car out of common courtesy and kindness, but his girlfriend might interpret it the wrong way and get jealous and angry. A girl might be staring at a handsome guy because he looks familiar and thinks she might know him, but her boyfriend might interpret it the wrong way and accuse her of staring at other boys when he is right beside her. Many little misunderstandings like these happen with two people, and in this case, the air stewardess might have been giving out wrong signals by using misleading gestures.  I am not in anyway trying to defend Mdm Tan. She had no right to get physical with a stranger and is definitely in the wrong. All I am saying is that maybe there is a little more to why she got so angry than we know of. Perhaps beyond the stewardess's conversation were things that she had been unaware of. Perhaps it is in her nature to be touchy when talking to people and Mdm Tan had not appreciated that. Perhaps she had used a flirtatious tone to speak to Mr Wong which had irked Mdm Tan. Sometimes we do things without realizing that we provoke others. Be it in our hand gestures, our tone, our eyes... they have tendencies to send out mixed signals if we are unaware of the situation. 

 

Treating this as a private matter will disallow the public eye to get further insights on this situation. We will never know what really went on, as we know, the Singapore media is heavily controlled by those with the power to do so. So is treating this as a private matter just? I still cannot decide for myself.