Müfide İlhan

Müfide İlhan (1911, Mersin - 1996, Bodrum) was a mayor of Mersin, Turkey in the early 1950s. She is known as being the first woman mayor in Turkey.

Early life

Müfide was born on February 19, 1911.[1] Her father was Mustafa Nazif, an army officer and her mother was Emine, a homemaker. She was only four years of age when her father Nafiz was killed at Conk Bayırı during the Gallipoli campaign in the World War I. After the war, Mersin was temporarily occupied by French army . So, she was sent to Ankara, where she completed her elementary education. After the liberation of İstanbul, she moved to İstanbul and completed her secondary education in the Kandilli highschool[2] for girls. In 1928 she finished teachers' college. After finihing the college she began serving as a teacher in İstanbul

Professional life

She married to Doctor Faruk İlhan. The couple worked in various Turkish cities. They also studied at Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus Institute in Berlin, Germany. In 1937, they returned home only to make one more foreign travel. This time their destination was Kabul, Afghanistan, where her husband, now a professor, had got an invitation to teach in the Medicine school of Kabul University. They travelled to Iraq, where they sailed from Basra to Karachi. In 1945 towards the end of World War II, the couple decided to return to Turkey. But because of war time hardships and unrest in Karachi, the couple was not able to sail back. So, they returned home by a car over Iran, which seemed impossible to many people in 1945. In Turkey, they decided to settle in Mersin in 1946, where she began to get interested in politics.[3]

Political life

The Democrat Party (DP) defeated the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in 1950 general elections, thus ended 27-years rule of the CHP, which later on was called the 'white revolution'. Müfide İlhan became the mayor of Mersin as the candidate of DP, and she created sensation both at home and abroad for being the first ever female mayor of Turkey, at a time when the participation of Turkish women in politics was still considerably low.

İlhan, as most reformists of the day, was against the authoritarian administration of pre-1950 CHP government. However she was not against the ideology of CHP, so called Kemalism. Thus, some early moves of DP government, which seemed to be against Kemalism, disappointed her. For example, it was difficult for her to accept DP government's lift of the ban on Arabic ezan.[4] It was the CHP government, which initiated ezan in Turkish in 1932 instead of in traditional Arabic.

In 1951, after a year of extensive work, she resigned both from the post and the party. She formed a league named 'League for supporting independent candidates' in Mersin. She also published a short lived bulletin named Mücadele (English: Struggle).

Other activities

Between 1968 and 1981 she worked as a teacher in Germany for Turkish immigrants.[5] She worked in a number of social associations. In her later years she donated to hospitals and a retirement home in Mersin.

As a mother

Müfide had seven children. In 1965, she was elected as the 'mother of the year' by the Turkish Association of Mothers.[6]

Legacy

A neighborhood in Akdeniz municipality and a public park in Yenişehir municipality are named after her. One of the art galleries of İçel sanat kulübü (the main art club of Mersin) is also named after her.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kudret Ünal:Müfide İlhan, Tarsus Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, Tarsus, 2013 ISBN 978-605-62343-9-2,p.11
  2. ↑ Information (Turkish)
  3. ↑ İçel Sanat Kulübü dergisi, 175, Abdullah Ayan: Bilinmeyen Müfide İlhan
  4. ↑ Online article by Fatma Yılmaz (Turkish)
  5. ↑ "Online newspaper article". Todayszaman.com. 2009-03-16. Retrieved 2011-01-02.
  6. ↑ Evlerin Önü Mersin, Mersin Liseliler derneği, 1987, p.54