In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a very least populated land while it covers close to a sixth of the nation's area. Getting resisted while in hundreds of years the chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old Turkistan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is generally Uyghurs and Turkish - speaking System.
Muslim mainly, the Uyghur people have a deep religious identification which usually, in specific, permitted them to keep a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Certainly, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their own history, the Uyghurs successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., therefore starting the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the effect of the religions which they taken, Uyghur People used successively, and at times 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 change mainly because it was accompanied by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Kingdom. 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 difference with the culture of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different from their aspect, so characteristic of Central Asia's people. A shiny skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features going 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 little for this kind of large area. So, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been well-known in an official way by China.
This particular law will allow them a few privileges in a country exactly where their 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.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, looks very illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang, and its proximity with nations acknowledged as very sensitive, highly 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 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.
Saying more freedom, but especially the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in place 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 identity and their ethnic heritage , even though they become a minority on their own territory.
For 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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