In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang is the least populated land while it covers close to a sixth of the nation's area. Getting resisted during hundreds of years the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkistan, fell into within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghurs and Turkish - speaking System.
Islamic mainly, the Uyghurs have a solid religious identification that, in specific, allowed them to protect a strong difference towards the Chinese invader. Indeed, the Uyghur Kingdom 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 taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result starting the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they taken, Uyghur People used successively, and at times in a competing way, a large 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 supported by the absorption 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 own writing, their language and their religion mark a real difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different from their characteristic, so characteristic 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 included the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only 8 million people - a trifle for this immense region. Therefore, the Uyghurs are now part of the 56 racial minority groups having been known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This law will allow them a few privileges in a land exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur families 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, seems really illusory. The presence of natural sources in Xinjiang, and its proximity with countries identified as very sensitive, highly motivated the government to accelerate 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 Uyghurs 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 acceptance of their true identity, this movement was seriously 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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly continue to keep their identification and their ethnic heritage , though they become a minority on their own territory.
For further information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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