In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the least populated province while it covers close to a sixth of the nation's area. Having resisted during hundreds of years the chinese domination, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Turkestan, fell within the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic especially, the Uyghurs have a deep religious identity which usually, in particular, permitted them to protect a solid difference towards the Chinese invader. Indeed, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a great civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their historical past, the Uyghur People successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus beginning the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the influence of the religions which they taken, the Uyghurs used successively, and sometimes 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 change mainly because it was accompanied by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used nowadays.
If their own writing, their language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also differ from their aspect, 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 origins 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 trifle for this kind of great region. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the 56 racial minority groups having been well known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This statute allows these people a few privileges in a land where their big difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is accepted as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, looks very illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang, and its area with locations well-known 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 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.
Asserting more freedom, but especially the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in place 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 ethnic heritage , though they become a minority on their own land.
For additional information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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