In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang is the least populated province whereas it covers close to a sixth with the nation's territory. Getting resisted during centuries the chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Islamic above all, the Uyghur people have a deep religious identification that, in specific, permitted them to keep a strong big 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 background, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result beginning the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the influence of the beliefs which they adopted, Uyghur People used successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The entrance of Islam was a great change because it was accompanied by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turkic 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 culture of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different 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 pointing 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, though they represent only eight million inhabitants - a little for this particular large area. Therefore, Uyghur people are now part of the 56 racial minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.
This statute allows them a few privileges in a land where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, looks quite illusory. The presence of all natural resources in Xinjiang, and its distance with locations identified as sensitive, highly urged the government to accelerate 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 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.
Asserting more freedom, but in particular the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in area Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
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 maintain their identification and their tradition , even though they become a minority on their own land.
To get more detailed information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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