Little about the Uyghurs

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 whereas it covers near to a sixth from the country's area. Having resisted during centuries the chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old Eastern Turkistan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.

Islamic especially, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identity which usually, in particular, enabled them to preserve a solid difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. In fact, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.

While in their background, the Uyghurs successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus opening the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.

Under the effect of the religions which they adopted, Uyghur People used successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.

The entrance of Islam was a great modification simply because it was followed by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turkic and Muslim 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, Uyghur People also differ 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 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 nine million population - a trifle for this large country. 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 law allows them a few rights in a country 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 Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, appears quite illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang, and its closeness with countries well-known as very sensitive, clearly motivated the government to accelerate the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the greater responsibility jobs.

In reaction to this true will to assimilate the Uyghur people 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 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 identification and their tradition , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own land.

To get more detailed information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com