In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a least populated province while it covers near to a sixth from the country's area. Getting resisted while in centuries the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Turkistan, fell under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Islamic above all, the Uyghurs have a strong religious identification which, in particular, allowed them to keep a solid big difference towards the Chinese enemy. Definitely, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their own history, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result starting the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the influence of the beliefs which they taken on, the Uyghurs 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 arrival of Islam was a great change because it was accompanied by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Muslim Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used at present.
If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real big difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also differ from their characteristic, so characteristic of Central Asia's people. A matt skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features going out to the Mongolian, Turkish or Uzbek origins of these men and these women.
For a few years, China has integrated the proper identity of these remote people, though they represent only 9 million population - a trifle for this particular immense land. So, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.
This law allows these people a few rights in a country exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is recognized 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 really illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its proximity with nations identified as sensitive, highly urged the government to speed up the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the greater responsibility jobs.
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 in particular the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in place Xinjiang.
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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly hold their identity and their traditions , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own land.
For additional information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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