In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a very least populated land whereas it covers near to a sixth from the country's territory. Having resisted during hundreds of years the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old East Turkistan, fell within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic primarily, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identity which, in specific, permitted them to protect a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. In fact, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a brilliant 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 lastly moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus starting the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the influence of the religions which they adopted, the Uyghurs taken 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 coming of Islam was a great modification since it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur areas in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Muslim Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used at present.
If their writing, their language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also differ from their characteristic, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A shiny skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features directing out to the Mongolian, Turkish or Uzbek origins of these men and these women.
For a few years, China has included the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only 8 million people - a trifle for this particular big region. So, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been well known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This particular statute allows them a few rights in a land where their big difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is recognized as the second official language in Xinjiang.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, looks pretty illusory. The presence of natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its proximity with locations recognized as sensitive, strongly urged the government to increase the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the higher responsibility jobs.
In response to this true will to assimilate the Uyghur people into the Chinese culture, an independent party like East Turkistan Islamic Movement(ETIM) was born in the early 1990.
Saying more flexibility, but specially the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in location 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 territory.
To get more information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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