In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a least populated land whereas it covers near to a sixth from the nation's area. Having resisted while in hundreds of years the Han Chinese domination, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim most importantly, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identification which, in specific, permitted them to protect a solid difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. Without a doubt, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a great civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their own history, the Uyghur People successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly changing 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 influence of the religions which they taken, 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 unique graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great modification simply because it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur areas in the enormous Turkic and Muslim Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used currently.
If their writing, their language and their religion mark a real 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 going 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 8 million population - a little for this particular large country. So, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This law will allow them a few privileges in a land exactly where their big 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, seems pretty illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with nations identified as very sensitive, clearly 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 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.
Asserting more freedom, but specially the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely 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 Uyghur population continues today to proudly keep their identity and their culture , although they become a minority on their own land.
For much more information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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