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 least populated land while it covers close to a sixth from the country's area. Having resisted while in generations the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old Turkestan, fell under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim especially, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identification that, in specific, allowed them to maintain a solid difference towards the Chinese enemy. Really, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a brilliant civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their historical past, the Uyghur People 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 beginning the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they adopted, the Uyghurs used successively, and at times in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The arrival of Islam was a great modification since it was accompanied by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Muslim Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used nowadays.
If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs 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 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 nine million people - a trifle for this kind of large region. So, the Uyghurs 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 where their big difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, appears quite illusory. The presence of all natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its area with locations identified as sensitive, clearly urged the government to increase 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 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 especially the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in location 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 culture , though they become a minority on their own territory.
For more information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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