In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a least populated province while it covers close to a sixth from the country's area. Having resisted during generations the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old East Turkestan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is generally Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Islamic primarily, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identification which, in specific, allowed them to protect a solid big difference towards the Chinese invader. Without a doubt, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their history, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., therefore opening the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the influence of the religions which they taken, Uyghur People taken successively, and at times in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great change because it was accompanied by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Muslim Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used presently.
If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition 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 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, though they represent only nine million people - a little for this particular immense region. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six 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 land where their big 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.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, appears quite illusory. The presence of all natural resources in Xinjiang, and its distance with nations acknowledged as sensitive, highly motivated 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 work opportunities.
In reaction 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 flexibility, but mainly the acceptance 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 Uyghur population continues today to proudly keep their identification and their tradition , though they become a minority on their own territory.
To get more detailed information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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