Essay On Cockatoo Island

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Recommended: Modernity Within Tradition

Transformation of Traditions towards Modernity: Cockatoo Island

Lisa Nguyen
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney

Introduction

The weight of the desolation immediately clung onto my shoulders as I stepped off the F3 Parramatta River Ferry. Remnants of shipyards and timeworn buildings are rooted into the ground as if the Indigenous had never occupied a speck of this island. The decaying atmosphere can be perceived through the moss that stretched over the steep cliffs, emphasising how this historical landmark has weathered the age of time.

With each step that I took, my eyes wandered around the empty warehouses filled with abandoned furniture, the agony of the tortured restless souls rooting me to the ground …show more content…

These tasks were mainly associated with quarrying, labouring and construction. (Cockatoo Island, History of Convicts n.d.). During 1857-1869, Cockatoo Island was transformed into one of Australia’s largest shipyards and also coexisted as the infamous ‘Biloela Gaol’, housing prisoners temporarily due to the overcrowding in Darlinghurst Gaol. In 1913, Cockatoo Island was transferred to the Commonwealth and became the dockyard of the Royal Australian Navy. The dockyard mainly operated to renovate and repair ships and later on functioned as the largest dockyard in the southern hemisphere during World War II (Fletcher 2011, pp. 78). The First and Second World War followed the conversion of merchant and luxury liners into stores, troop transports and hospital …show more content…

“Transformation of Traditions towards Modernity: Cockatoo Island” illustrates the evolution of human rights through the prisoners, labourers and children that occupied this island. This essay will argue about the extent that modernisation has affected traditions in relation with Cockatoo Island. These ideas and history associated with Cockatoo Island are devices utilised to understand how the traditional concept of ‘White Supremacy’ has driven modernity.

In this essay, the focus is driven towards the themes of ‘modernity’ and ‘tradition’ and how they are inextricably linked in the development of human rights, shaping the way Australia has transformed and evolved into a modern nation. Undoubtedly, the idea of modernity is attributed to the notions of ‘tradition’. By breaking down these notions through concepts of progress, we are able to link ‘traditions’ and ‘modernity’, showing how advancements in ‘modernity’ were met with conflicts in ‘traditions’.

White

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