In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang is the very least populated land while 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 within the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic above all, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identification that, in particular, permitted them to protect a strong big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Indeed, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their historical past, the Uyghurs successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result opening the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the effect of the religions which they adopted, the Uyghurs used successively, and at times in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own unique graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great modification simply because it was followed by the absorption of the Uyghur areas in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used these days.
If their own writing, their language and their religion mark a real big difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different 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 roots of these men and these women.
For a few years, China has integrated the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only 8 million inhabitants - a little for this kind of huge land. Thus, the Uyghurs are now part of the 56 ethnic minority groups having been known in an official way by China.
This law allows these people a few rights in a country where their difference is very often repressed. Therefore, 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 natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its distance with nations identified as very sensitive, strongly encouraged the government to speed up the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the more significant responsibility job opportunities.
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 flexibility, but specially the acceptance 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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly keep up their identity and their tradition , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own territory.
For more information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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