In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang is the very least populated province while it covers near to a sixth from the nation's area. Getting resisted during generations the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Muslim most importantly, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identification which, in particular, permitted them to keep a strong difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Without a doubt, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their background, 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., therefore starting the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the influence of the religions which they taken on, 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 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 Turkic and Muslim Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used today.
If their writing, their language and their religion mark a real big difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different from their characteristic, so characteristic of Central Asia's people. A shiny skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features pointing 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, although they represent only 9 million inhabitants - a little for this specific big land. So, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been recognized in an official way by China.
This statute will allow these people a few rights in a land exactly where their big difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, seems very illusory. The presence of natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with countries well-known as sensitive, clearly encouraged the government to speed up the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the larger responsibility work 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 freedom, but specially the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in place 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 continue to keep their identification and their civilization , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own territory.
To get more detailed information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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