Little about the Uyghurs

In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the land of Xinjiang is the very least populated province whereas it covers near to a sixth with the country's area. Getting resisted while in centuries the Han Chinese domination, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkistan, fell into under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghurs and Turkish - speaking System.

Islamic primarily, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identity which, in specific, permitted them to maintain a strong difference towards the Chinese invader. Really, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a great civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.

While in their own historical past, the Uyghur People successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus starting the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.

Under the effect of the beliefs which they taken on, the Uyghurs 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 coming of Islam was a great change because it was supported by the absorption of the Uyghur areas in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Muslim Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used currently.

If their writing, their language and their religion mark a real big difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different 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 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 9 million people - a little for this specific immense region. Therefore, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been recognized in an official way by the People's Republic of China.

This statute allows these people a few privileges in a land where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, seems very illusory. The presence of all-natural resources in Xinjiang, and its proximity with nations recognised as very sensitive, highly urged the government to accelerate 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.

Asserting more flexibility, but mainly the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely 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 Uyghur population continues today to proudly continue to keep their identification and their culture , though they become a minority on their own territory.

For additional information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com