In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a very least populated land while it covers close to a sixth with the nation's territory. Having resisted while in generations the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old East Turkestan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim above all, the Uyghur people have a deep religious identification which, in particular, allowed them to preserve a solid difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. In fact, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a excellent 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 converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result starting the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the influence of the religions which they taken on, Uyghur People used successively, and sometimes 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 modification because it was supported 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 presently.
If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different from their characteristic, so characteristic of Central Asia's people. A matt 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 eight million inhabitants - a little for this kind of big land. Thus, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been recognized in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This particular statute will allow them 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 known as the second official language in Xinjiang.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, seems really illusory. The presence of all natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its proximity with locations known as very sensitive, strongly urged 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 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 freedom, but in particular the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in location Xinjiang.
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 peoples population continues today to proudly continue to keep their identity and their tradition , even though they become a minority on their own land.
For further information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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