In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang is the least populated land while it covers close to a sixth from the nation's area. Getting resisted while in centuries the chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old Turkestan, fell within the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim especially, the Uyghur people have a deep religious identification that, in specific, enabled them to keep a solid big difference towards the Chinese invader. Of course, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their own history, the Uyghurs successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result opening the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they taken, the Uyghurs taken successively, and at times in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great modification because it was followed by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the immense Turkic and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used nowadays.
If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real big difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also differ 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 integrated the proper identity of these remote people, though they represent only nine million population - a little for this specific big country. So, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.
This particular statute allows them a few rights in a land 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 Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, appears very illusory. The presence of natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with countries known as 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 larger responsibility job 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.
Asserting more flexibility, but specially the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in area 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 Uyghur peoples population continues today to proudly keep their identity and their ethnic heritage , though they become a minority on their own territory.
To get more information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment