A punk diary look at protest theatre done properly, for once
Every so often a story crosses my desk that makes British protest culture look positively tame, and this week it was India’s Cockroach Party, a movement I had not heard of on Monday and could not stop talking about by Wednesday.
What Actually Happened
According to the report on the Cockroach Party’s march on parliament, a genuinely inventive bit of political theatre played out this week, with organisers making the point, loudly and with props, that certain institutions are apparently impossible to kill no matter how many times the public tries. I will admit a grudging respect. This is the kind of committed, costumed, deeply irritating-to-the-authorities protest that London used to be famous for, back before every march required a risk assessment and a designated route past three Pret A Mangers.
I brought it up with the rhythm guitarist, who does actually know a bit about Indian politics, unlike me, and he said the metaphor lands because it is precise. Cockroaches survive nearly everything. So, apparently, do certain political habits. He then went back to fixing a broken string, which felt like the correct level of engagement for a Tuesday.
Comparing Notes With London
I had a read through Cyndi Himmelstiere’s Shoreditch reporting right after, mostly to see if anyone here has staged anything half as committed lately. The closest we have managed recently is a man outside the tube station with a sandwich board about pigeons, which, respect to him, but it is not quite parliament-storming energy.
I also skimmed the health desk, because after reading about a party literally named after an insect I felt the need to check I was not coming down with something. Turns out I was just tired. Rehearsals will do that.
The Costume Question
What impressed me most, honestly, was the commitment to the bit. Half measures do not work in protest theatre. You either dress as the cockroach fully, antenna and all, or you look like you have wandered in from a fancy dress shop that has run out of better options. From the photographs I saw, nobody was doing this by halves, and I respect that. British protest tends to stop at the placard. This lot went the full costume department.
I have some experience here, having once performed an entire gig dressed as a discarded traffic cone as a bit, so I feel qualified to say that committing fully to a ridiculous premise is the only way to make the point land. Half a costume just reads as confusion. A full costume reads as conviction.
Why Insects Make Good Symbols
There is a long tradition, going back further than any of us in this band, of protest movements borrowing from the animal kingdom to make a point that words alone cannot quite land. Rats, snakes, and now apparently cockroaches, have all done duty as political shorthand at one time or another, usually because the insect or animal in question survives conditions that would flatten most other creatures, which is precisely the point being made about the institution under criticism. It is blunt. It is visual. It works on a t-shirt, which, as someone who has designed several band t-shirts under serious time pressure, I can tell you is not nothing.
I also think, and this is purely a personal theory, that there is something satisfying about choosing a creature nobody particularly likes. You cannot accidentally make the target sympathetic by picking a cockroach as your mascot. Nobody walks away from that protest feeling warmly toward cockroaches. The symbolism only cuts one direction, which is exactly what good protest branding needs to do.
What Happens Next
The organisers have apparently promised further demonstrations if the underlying grievance is not addressed, which suggests this is not a one costume protest but the opening move in something longer. I will be watching with interest, partly out of genuine political curiosity and partly because I want to know what the sequel costume is going to be. You cannot follow a cockroach with something less committed. The bar has been set uncomfortably high for whatever comes next.
For what it is worth, the drummer thinks the whole thing will get turned into a meme within days and lose its original bite entirely, the way most sharp protest imagery eventually does once it leaves its original context and starts getting reposted with unrelated captions. I hope he is wrong. Some ideas deserve to stay exactly as pointed as they started.
The Punk Verdict
Say what you like about the Cockroach Party’s chosen mascot, but you cannot fault the branding. It is memorable, it is visual, and it makes its point without a single press release describing how big the point is, which, given everything else I have read this week about British politics, counts as refreshingly direct.
Set finishes at eleven, I am walking home past the same three closed shopfronts I walk past every week, and I am thinking, not for the first time, that London’s protest scene could learn something from a party willing to dress as a cockroach and mean it.
