In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the land of Xinjiang is a least populated province whereas it covers near to a sixth of the country's territory. Having resisted while in centuries the chinese domination, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old East Turkistan, fell under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim primarily, the Uyghurs have a deep religious identity which usually, in specific, allowed them to protect a strong big difference towards the Chinese invader. Indeed, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a brilliant civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their own background, the Uyghurs successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus beginning the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they taken on, 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 entrance of Islam was a great change mainly because it was followed by the absorption of the Uyghur areas in the immense Turkic and Muslim Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used presently.
If their own writing, their language and their religion mark a real big difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different from their characteristic, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A matt 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, though they represent only 8 million inhabitants - a trifle for this huge region. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the 56 ethnic minority groups having been recognized in an official way by China.
This particular law will allow these people a few privileges in a country exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, 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, appears quite illusory. The presence of all natural sources in Xinjiang, and its area with countries recognized as sensitive, clearly 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 larger 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.
Saying more flexibility, but mainly the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously 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 peoples population continues today to proudly hold their identification and their culture , even 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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