In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a least populated province whereas it covers near to a sixth of the nation's area. Getting resisted while in hundreds of years the Han Chinese domination, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkistan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic mainly, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identification that, in specific, allowed them to preserve a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Without a doubt, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their own background, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result beginning the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the influence of the religions which they taken, 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 graphic system.
The entrance of Islam was a great modification since it was supported by the absorption of the Uyghur areas in the immense Turkic and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly 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 culture of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also differ from their characteristic, so characteristic 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 roots 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 people - a trifle for this great area. Thus, the Uyghurs 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 will allow them a few rights in a land where their difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is accepted as the second official language in Xinjiang.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, seems pretty illusory. The presence of natural sources in Xinjiang, and its proximity with locations recognized as very sensitive, highly encouraged the government to increase the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the greater responsibility work opportunities.
In reaction 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 in particular the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in place 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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly maintain their identity and their ethnic heritage , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own territory.
To get more detailed information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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