Little about the Uyghurs

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 very least populated province whereas it covers near to a sixth from the country's area. Getting resisted while in generations 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 primarily Uyghurs and Turkish - speaking System.

Islamic primarily, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identity that, in particular, permitted them to protect a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Of course, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.

During their own history, 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 opening the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.

Under the effect of the beliefs 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 graphic system.

The arrival of Islam was a great change mainly because it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turkic and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used at present.

If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also differ from their aspect, so characteristic 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 roots 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 inhabitants - a trifle for this particular immense land. Thus, 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 privileges in a country 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 Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, looks really illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with nations known as very sensitive, clearly motivated the government to accelerate the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the larger 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 specially the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in place 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 Uyghur population continues today to proudly continue to keep their identity and their civilization , although they become a minority on their own land.

For much more information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com