In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the very least populated province whereas it covers near to a sixth with the country's area. Getting resisted while in hundreds of years the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old Turkistan, fell within the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is generally Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic above all, the Uyghurs have a very good religious identification which usually, in specific, allowed them to maintain a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Of course, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their historical past, 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., thus opening the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they adopted, 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 graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great change since it was supported by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turkic and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used at present.
If their own writing, their language and their religion mark a real big 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, although they represent only 9 million population - a little for this particular large land. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.
This particular law allows them a few privileges in a land 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.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, appears pretty illusory. The presence of all natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its distance with countries recognized as sensitive, clearly urged the government to speed up the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the higher responsibility job opportunities.
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 especially the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in area Xinjiang.
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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly maintain their identity and their culture , although they become a minority on their own land.
To get more information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment