In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang is a very least populated land while it covers close to a sixth from the country's area. Getting resisted while in centuries the Han Chinese domination, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Turkistan, fell into within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim primarily, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identity which usually, in particular, permitted them to preserve a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Certainly, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a great civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their history, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus beginning the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the effect of the religions which they taken on, Uyghur People used successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own unique graphic system.
The entrance of Islam was a great change simply because it was supported by the absorption of the Uyghur areas in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used currently.
If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real big difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different from their aspect, so characteristic of Central Asia's people. A matt skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features directing out to the Mongolian, Turkish or Uzbek roots of these men and these women.
For a few years, China has included the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only nine million people - a trifle for this kind of large region. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been recognized in an official way by China.
This statute allows these people a few privileges in a country exactly where their big difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, seems very illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang, and its area with countries well-known as sensitive, clearly urged the government to increase the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the larger responsibility job opportunities.
In reaction to this true will to assimilate the Uyghurs into the Chinese culture, an independent party like East Turkistan Islamic Movement(ETIM) was born in the early 1990.
Asserting more freedom, but primarily the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in place Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The situations of September 11, 2001, were the perfect occasion for the Chinese government to justify true reprisals: they declared the "Uyghur freedom fighters" as dangerous terrorists linked to Al Quaida because of their Muslim origins and their proximity with Pakistan and Afghanistan... However, the terrible repression which followed did not calm down the anger. The Uyghur population continues today to proudly maintain their identification and their ethnic heritage , though they become a minority on their own land.
To get more detailed information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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