In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the least populated land whereas it covers close to a sixth from the nation's area. Having resisted while in generations the chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old East Turkistan, fell within the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Muslim above all, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identity which usually, in particular, allowed them to preserve a strong difference towards the Chinese enemy. Certainly, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their history, the Uyghurs successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., therefore beginning the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they adopted, Uyghur People used successively, and at times in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The arrival of Islam was a great change since it was accompanied by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turkic and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used nowadays.
If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also differ from their aspect, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A shiny skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features pointing 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 population - a trifle for this kind of great region. So, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This particular law allows these people a few privileges in a land exactly where their big difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is accepted 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 natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its proximity with nations recognised as sensitive, strongly 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 work opportunities.
In response 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 flexibility, but mainly the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in location Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The events 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 continue to keep their identification and their tradition , though they become a minority on their own land.
For additional information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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