In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the very least populated land whereas it covers close to a sixth with the country's territory. Having resisted while in centuries the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell into under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic especially, the Uyghur people have a solid religious identity that, in particular, allowed them to keep a solid difference towards the Chinese invader. Really, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a brilliant civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their history, the Uyghur People 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 opening the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they adopted, Uyghur People 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 since it was supported by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turkic and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used at present.
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 pointing 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 people - a little for this great region. Therefore, Uyghur people are now part of the 56 ethnic minority groups having been well known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This particular statute allows them a few rights in a country exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Therefore, 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 Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, appears pretty illusory. The presence of all 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 more significant responsibility work opportunities.
In reaction 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 mainly the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in area 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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly continue to keep their identity and their traditions , even though they become a minority on their own land.
For further information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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