Katinka Simonse (aka Tinkebell) – Art or Cruelty?
Katinka Simonse is a 31 year old woman from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. For the past few months, she has been in the media spotlight for reasons that most people would find disturbing.
According to the general public, she has been getting away with animal cruelty for the past few years. It is reported that she has 60 hamsters which she keeps in hamster balls, has remote controlled guinea pigs, places day old male chicks through paper shredders, writes on the snails in her garden to keep count of them… and killed her pet cat, Pinkeltje, and made it into a bag.
These are things that cause public outrage… but what are her reasons for it? She does all of the above for reasons she feels strongly about to make what she does seem OK.
She hasn’t been charged by the police, but has angered people so much that she is gets 100,000+ hate emails a day!
According to her, what she does is not appalling or repulsive. She wants to highlight the hypocrisy and double-standards with what people perceive as cruelty. She questions “What is cruel?”. She may have killed her sick cat and made it into a purse, but as she says, “ there is not a single cow who had a good life before it became a bag.” She explains she’s doing this “to use an animal that’s close to you in order to show what we do with the ones that are far from sight. I wanted people to think about that.”
To her, walking past Burger King, and seeing someone eat a hamburger makes her want to puke. She explains that it’s because she only sees what happens before the burger became a burger: the animal at the factory, what happened to it and how it was fattened up in a very short period of time. That to her is cruelty.
I am not supporting or condoning her. This is how she thinks, and these are her reasons. Do you agree with her words?
Do watch the two videos below. One has subtitles and the other doesn’t…
Tsem Rinpoche
Or view the video on the server at: http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/Tinkebell_What_is_Cruel.flv
http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/dutch_tinkabel.flv
Or view the video on the server at: http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/dutch_tinkabel.flv
Dear friends, I am not judging this woman, but I present some of the findings here for you. It’s just for awareness.
Take a look. May no animals suffer.
TR
I think no matter how strongly we felt about certain things and would like to bring a message across we should not partake in actions that brings suffering to any living beings. There is alot of other altrnatives way such as those done by PETA which has gotten lots of publicity. We may perceived our actions as right and appropriate but it is not always the correct nor best way.
As said by Rinpoche = ” May no animals suffer ”
One less suffers , is one better.
Hi Liew, you are so right and you took the words right out of my mouth. There are many ways to help lessen sufferings of the animals. She said people are cruel eating a hamburger but what gives her the right to kill and parade it around? Hypocrites in their own way and in denial of what people says because of ignorance. Not only may no animals suffer but may all of us be free of sufferings…
Non sense for me. if I miss my good friend from far , so I am going to kill him and transform his skin in a bag to carry him close to me everyday?!? Non sense There is here , because there are not some animals who can be killed and others who can’t… Any living beings , whatever species it belongs has the right to live his life and be happy without being hurt. May every beings live with joy and happiness whoever species they belong to! <3 om mani padme hung. om mani padme hung for all the ones who has been killed with the will to or by accident. may everyone realise that no-one, humans or animals, want to be hurt or kill. Om mani padme hung.
Thank you Rinpoche for posting this topic, she does make a valid point to bring to the fore what is cruelty however her logic to support her argument (by euthinasing her pet cat and turning into a handbag and use of small hampsters) about the suffering of animals for society eating pleasure is no different.
Suffering is suffering for the animals on both sides of this arguement presented in the videos. It shows very clearly that without dharma how one can certainly be lead down wrong views, perceptions and resulting karmas on both sides of the debate.
The Buddhas determination to find the “middle way” on his path to enlightenment…after years of intense asectic practice…makes me contemplate what would a middle way message could have been better? to bridge the debate from both sides who care for animals in their unique ways.
Behind initial appearances I ask myself what is Katinka Simonse motivation for the debate she has put herself in the middle of? Why would you want to print a book of the hate mail you have recieved? For more attention and support your arguement, I am right they are wrong…
In the whole debate no animal suffering she claims to be against has changed or stopped from her side.
As part of my practice to remember the suffering of animals apart from taking a vegetarian vow for life (and current transition to full vegan) I dedicate small prayers when I see the excess of fashion for visual pleasure, where I live it seems to me in the past couple of years women’s leather footwear has increased in heights (maybe fake leather or not) either way in my view still perpetuates the cycle of use and abuse of animals.
From my own experience consistency of what you believe in (regarding being vegetarian) highlighting the issues of animal suffering and consistency of walking the talk softens attitudes and helps bridge gaps between hardened attitudes of I only eat meat (followed by sometimes ridicule, sometimes anger and other responses not suitable for the blog, is nothing compared to the karma of being the animal that has to suffer needlessly for humans).
Actually it is very easy to influence close friends and family to change their habits when they are able to see other aspects of the debate they could not see clearly in the past plus the longterm consistency of your actions.
Rinpoche and blog team thank you for the timely reminder and inspiration/support to practice contemplation of compassion time and time again. Please everyone take to heart and put into practise the benefit you derive from this post also.
Much love and prayers. Jason
I think that woman is sick, I think she is mentally ill. Anyone who has really loved a cat, or any other pet, would never do such thing! If she really cared she would find other ways to convey her message, because that horror bag can never be a positive message, and a book of hate mail is not really something to be proud of.
Interesting point she brought up there. I think her point makes sense but it is self-defeating because she uses cruelty towards familiar animals to highlight the plight of other animals. The point she neglects to mention is the fact that she is still cruel. The publicity stunt of making the handbag out of her sick cat seems to fuel her more than the actual cause. Her pink eyes look cold and without feeling when she talks about it. She loved her hate mail. It is the most attention she ever gotten in her life and the fact that she published it as a book shows how much she loves it. A lot of tell tale signs that she is off and is loving the attention from it.
I don’t agree with what she did but what she said did send a strong message -
Just because we buy our meat from a supermarket doesn’t mean we are not responsible for killing the animals whose carcasses end up on our dinner table and by paying a vet to put our terminally ill pets to sleep doesn’t make us a kind and loving pet owner. In fact these pet owners are just like her.
How we judge her, is in fact how we should see ourselves. She is no other than our own society (and ourselves) in the fullness of our ignorance. On the one hand, we pretend not to know how badly animals are being treated before they become food and things for human beings. On the other hand, we think that we can highlight human cruelty by committing even more cruelty.
However, i salute her in-your-face-approach because shock is what is needed when gentle pleas have not been heeded for decades.
Anyone who criticize and judge her must FIRST check if they themselves are meat eaters and therefore partakers of cruelty, and users of things that come from animals having to suffer (such as cosmetics, handbags etc). If they are, they have no right to judge because they are DIRECTLY contributing to the cruelty. There is no denying that animals are tortured and abused for human’s sakes. And so, when you eat meat, YOU make it ok for the animal to be tortured. In fact it is your lust for meat that causes the So, lets not pretend.killings.
What is more ignoble than doing nothing, is to show indignation when someone does something out of good motive, regardless of whether the method is right or not.
I guess the most offensive thing about this woman is that she reminds us, of our own actions that we have not wanted to come to terms with.
I find this very wrong. I think that she is self-contradictory and she is very, very deluded.
She is self-contradictory because she thinks that harming her animals is okay while seeing burger consumption as bad.
She is deluded as she thinks that the animal will have less suffering if it was murdered by the owner rather than being euthanized. I think that there would still be more suffering.
I feel sorry for this lady as she is a murderer and she most probably might become one animal that goes to slaughter or maybe a hell being at the rate she is killing.
If someone close to me was going to die of something like cancer, I would not kill him and skin him or her to make a bag.
What gives anyone the right to kill to make a point for saving other lives? Can only be self justification/gratification logic, otherwise labelled as gross delusion. If the law can’t stop
If the law can’t stop her actions, karma will take care of it.
More aptly, this is no more than a perverted sense of compassion.
This woman sense of righteousness is way off and she is obviously lapping up the attention given to her. No living beings should suffer and use a warped up excuse to kill is creating a delusion that this is an ok act. The media publicity given to her will only confuse the vulnerable. She has created so much negative karma, it will take a lots and lots of sincere practice to save her.
I agree with her veiws on leather shoes, bags and also her point on meat. It is a cruel process to make these products. However I do not agree with what she is doing. Since she doesn’t agree with people wearing leather and eating meat then why is she doing the same thing? This is only my veiw but I think if there is something that we don’t agree with because it is cruel or unfair we shouldn’t react to it but only teach people how to act. So in a way your being a good example for people. This is only my veiw.
-Millie
Thank you, Rinpoche, for this most thought-provoking post.
From my own closed and limited mind, i can’t be sure if Tinkebell is showing ‘crazy wisdom’ or acting out of a deluded mind.
Nevertheless,she makes me think about the cultural norm regarding ‘What constitutes Cruelty’. It would appear that, according to this this cultural norm, it is cruel to kill some object near and dear to us, like one’s pet.It is cruel to keep one’s pets in small suffocating confines. This same cultural norm perceives as not cruel if an animal that is not one’s pet is (cruelly) force-fed, kept in suffocating confines and brutally slaughtered and served to us as delicious meat on our dinner table.
Again, it is cruel, according to this cultural norm, to take the skin of one’s dead pet(even though it had been killed, in an act of euthanasia, by its owner out of compassion for it and to end its suffering from a terminal illness) and make it into a bag. However, this same cultural norm deems it not cruel to have animals deliberately reared and (cruelly) killed for their skin so as to make lovely handbags for people to buy at exorbitant prices and use.
So. Tinkebell is making a strong statement in protest against the cultural norm of Cruelty and for that she is being vilified.
Any normal person who has been in such media-spotlight would find them disturbing, except her. The spotlight news even indicated that “she has been getting away with animal cruelty for the past few years and created a storm with such acts; in addition to receiving 100,000 plus hate emails aday”. But yet she had the cheek to claim that her acts were not appaling, repulsive and cruel, than the Burgerking who fatten up the animals to make into hamburgers to be sold and eaten up, which make her to puke! How radiant and proud she seemed to appear in her tv appearences. Through her ignorance of false compassion she had even cut up her own sick pet-cat and used her beautiful fur skin to be made into a purse-bag.How crazy can a being be, and yet by her own reasoning, seems to think whatever she has done were all OK!!!
I couldn’t turn my kitteh into a bag, I couldn’t even set a trap for a mouse, I had to have my neighbor do it.
I think she is very sick and need mental care . SHE IS NOT NORMAL IN HEAD , PERIOD
Si tratta di un essere senza spirito alcuno ed anima!
You are a good candidate for DEATH PENALTY. I hope with all my heart that animalists take you for suffer the same things that you make against animals!! You are a devil and the devils must be die. Attention now you are in serious danger because all the people want know who is you and certainly they succeed to understand who is you.I will send your video to all my friends and then………You are very dangerous and stupid in the same time,shut up and attention again.
Are you vegetarian, Perla?
I beleive there are much more humane ways to get people to listen to animal rights concerns,then actually being cruel and painting it up to be ok!!!!
She is obviously in need of evaluation of her reality. For the last five and a half years i have re-homed and sterilised dogs in Zakynthos and i endevour to take care of animals and the environment to best way i can…. and its still not enough. all this woman is doing is re-directing anger at her instead of where it should be, so stop her doing this to the animals and then we can get on with the real battle…… saving the environment and animals from the parasite that is the human race.
Like it or not, this lady’s very unconventional way of highlighting the double standard of human society towards the treatment of “edible and non-edible” animals does strike a nerve in everyone. Any publicity is good publicity, as some would say. Hopefully people would not just stop at condemning her based on their notion of what cruelty is, but also consider her point of view on what cruelty is.
Check out her website- http://looovetinkebell.com/ (its rather disturbing but interesting at the same time).
She is crueland somthing needs to be done to her, no this is NOT ART!!! Next it will be exploting children she is sick and twisted andany fool who thinks this is art needs to get seriuos help!!!!
Methinks that most of the haters here have not realized their own ignorance and hypocrisy which they display so openly and generously.