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I   The first time I had to wear a uniform I looked like a madman struggling against a straitjacket I wept so hard that my parents got scared Mother became frustrated ‘What is the matter with you?’ Father demanded ‘You look so handsome in that uniform Why don’t you enjoy it rather than cry like an infant?’   Changing into my first school uniform had made me self-conscious I touched the fabric of this second skin with a sense of disgust The white shirt, blue waistcoat, grey trousers and bow tie had stripped me of my self I had morphed externally into someone else –  one of those who work   There was but one consolation: this was temporary When I returned from school I would recover my identity But the discovery of its instability troubled me That day had marked the beginning of an almost lifelong difficulty As children we become adults through the performance of dressing up, a ritual one cannot easily forget Having adopted its disguise, can there be a self outside the uniform?     II   In the last days of 2012, the Turkish government announced their decision to remove all uniforms from the country’s public schools Politicians in Ankara seemed committed to lifting a regulation which had been planned during the first decades of the Republican era, without paying much attention to the socio-political consequences Generations of Turkish pupils have been educated in and through uniforms Educational, military and social discipline have been maintained through their imposition Many ex-students, like me, spent a significant portion of their lives learning how best to carry them The uniform was the fundamental component of the school system, embodying a broader ideological programme that championed the concept of uniformity Teachers asked us to appreciate the importance of acting in unison: they lectured us about the value of homogenisation Turkey’s founding ideologues reformed the Turkish identity on the same principle, asking the country’s multiracial, multicultural population to willingly erase their heritage Through this cultural amnesia the diverse national identity could be reconstructed as a homogenised, and therefore more governable, entity   The uniform is both a symbol and a constitutive