In the middle 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 close to a sixth of the nation's territory. Having resisted during generations the Han Chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old Eastern Turkistan, fell into under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim above all, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identity which, in specific, permitted them to preserve a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. Indeed, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their historical past, 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., as a result beginning the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they taken on, Uyghur People 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 mainly because it was supported by the assimilation of the Uyghur areas in the enormous Turkic and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used presently.
If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real big difference with the tradition 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 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 8 million inhabitants - a trifle for this big region. Therefore, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been well-known in an official way by China.
This particular statute will allow them a few rights in a land where their difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is recognized as the second official language in Xinjiang.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, looks quite illusory. The presence of natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its area with countries acknowledged as very sensitive, clearly encouraged the government to accelerate the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the greater 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.
Saying more flexibility, but in particular the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously 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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly hold their identity and their traditions , although they become a minority on their own land.
For much more information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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