( CNN ) -- I spent part of my childhood in Ankara , Turkey , and part of it in Madrid , Spain . The school I attended in Ankara was a local building where they strictly followed the Turkish curriculum . My classroom oversaw a large courtyard , which we could n't see from our benches during class hours since all the windows had been half-painted in gray . Who had done it , I often wondered . Whose idea was it to cover the windows in such a dull color to prevent us from peering into the world outside ? The school I attended in Madrid was an international college with a predominantly British curriculum . I was the only Turk there . There were interesting contrasts between the two institutions , each of which left an impact on my young mind and soul . But the distinction that perhaps struck me most was the presence and the absence in each of `` the national oath '' . In Ankara , every Monday morning we would gather in the schoolyard , hundreds of us , wearing black uniforms and snow-white lace collars . Turning our faces towards the bust of Ataturk -- the founder of modern Turkey -- and keeping our arms straight like soldiers , we would chant in perfect unison : `` I am a Turk , I am correct , I am diligent ... '' And we would finish the oath with the same pledge : `` May my existence be a gift to you ! '' It was that final line that disturbed me deep inside . I just wanted to be myself . Nothing more , nothing less . Why was my being an offering to the Turkish state and the Turkish nation ? Could I not have a Self separate from the collective Self ? As years went by I started asking new questions : Was there room for individuality in the Turkish society ? If so what were its limits and why ? Generations in Turkey have grown up repeating the national oath . Even if you were Kurdish you were still expected to say aloud , `` I am a Turk . '' It was assumed that we all shared the same nationality ( Turkish ) and the same religion ( Muslim ) -- even those students who were Jewish or Armenian . The school system was based on sameness . We were treated as a mass of undifferentiated beings rather than individuals with diverse backgrounds and varying talents . It was only in 2013 that the national oath was abolished . But the ideology of sameness remains deeply-rooted . Today , it is just as difficult as yesterday to be and to remain an individual in Turkey . It is harder for women . In Turkey a woman is primarily seen as someone 's wife or someone 's daughter or someone 's mother . As a woman novelist , I am always treated as a woman first , then as a writer . For a male novelist it is the exact opposite . He is seen as a writer first and then people talk about his gender , if at all . One thing that makes me happy as a writer is to witness the diversity of my readers in Turkey : conservatives , liberals , leftists , secularists , Kemalists , Kurds , Alevis , Jews , Armenians ... Women with headscarves , women in miniskirts . But Turkey 's mainstream culture is deeply suspicious of `` difference '' -- be it cultural , ethnic or sexual . Turkish society is stubbornly patriarchal and homophobic . Sameness is venerated . The Prime Minister tells us that every Turkish woman should have at least three children while the government talks about the need for creating a `` new , pious Muslim youth . '' When identity is imposed from above , once again , individuality is in danger . Imagination is in danger . This land , which once upon a time , was a multi-ethnic , multilingual and multi-religious empire , has turned itself into a nation-state where uniformity and authoritarianism are venerated at the expense of diversity and cosmopolitanism . Turkey is filled with dynamism and potential for change but its adherence to sameness is stifling creativity and preventing it becoming a true and mature democracy . It is frustrating to see how little progress we have made over the years when it comes to improving our democracy , freedom of speech and women 's rights . We draw endless zigzags ; one step forward , one step back . And beneath the weight of sameness , Turkish society is more polarized than ever . The gap between supporters of the Prime Minister 's AKP party and its opponents is so wide that no one even attempts to bridge it anymore . We are divided into ghettoes of the like-minded . Glass walls surround us everywhere . We see each other but we neither listen nor talk , afraid and paranoid of the Other . As a result , the culture of coexistence , which was never profound in the first place , is eroding fast . There are only three areas left where people from different cultural and political backgrounds can still get together : art , literature and football . Outside these spaces we are a badly divided society .
Until recently , Turkish children would chant a national oath at school , says Elif ##kan . Its wording made her query the concept of separate and collective identity in Turkey , she writes . She says Turkey 's mainstream is suspicious of it . But she says ` ` sameness '' is stifling freedom and democracy and causing divisions in society .