In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the very least populated land whereas it covers close to a sixth from the country's territory. Having resisted during centuries the chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old East Turkistan, fell into under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic especially, the Uyghurs have a very good religious identity that, in specific, allowed them to protect a solid difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. Of course, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a brilliant civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their own 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 beginning the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they taken on, Uyghur People used successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The entrance of Islam was a great modification mainly because it was followed by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used currently.
If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also differ from their characteristic, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A shiny skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features directing out to the Mongolian, Turkish or Uzbek origins of these men and these women.
For a few years, China has included the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only 9 million population - a trifle for this particular huge area. 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 law will allow them a few privileges in a country exactly where their big 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 Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, looks very illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its distance with locations recognized as 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 higher responsibility jobs.
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 freedom, but specially the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in location 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 keep their identity and their tradition , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own territory.
To get more information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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