In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a least populated land whereas it covers close to a sixth of the nation's territory. Having resisted while in centuries the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkistan, fell under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Islamic most importantly, the Uyghurs have a strong religious identification which usually, in specific, permitted them to protect a strong big difference towards the Chinese enemy. Certainly, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a brilliant civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their background, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally 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 whole Central Asia.
Under the influence of the religions which they taken on, 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 entrance of Islam was a great change simply because it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turkic and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used nowadays.
If their 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 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, though they represent only nine million people - a little for this specific huge country. So, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been known in an official way by China.
This particular law allows these people a few privileges in a land exactly 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 China, however, looks really illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang, and its proximity with countries recognised as sensitive, strongly urged 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 Uyghurs into the Chinese culture, an independent party like East Turkistan Islamic Movement(ETIM) was born in the early 1990.
Asserting more flexibility, but primarily the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in area 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 peoples population continues today to proudly keep their identification and their traditions , though they become a minority on their own land.
To get more information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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