In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a least populated land whereas it covers close to a sixth from the nation's area. Having resisted during hundreds of years the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Turkestan, fell under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim mainly, the Uyghurs have a very good religious identity which, in specific, enabled them to protect a solid difference towards the Chinese invader. Definitely, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a great civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their own historical past, the Uyghur People successively adopted 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 whole Central Asia.
Under the effect of the religions which they adopted, the Uyghurs used successively, and at times in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own unique graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great change because it was accompanied by the absorption of the Uyghur areas in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Muslim Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used at present.
If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real big difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also differ 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 going 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, though they represent only 8 million people - a trifle for this specific huge area. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the 56 ethnic minority groups having been known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This statute will allow these people a few privileges in a land exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is recognized as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, looks very illusory. The presence of all-natural resources in Xinjiang, and its closeness with nations recognized 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 more significant responsibility jobs.
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 mainly the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in area 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 Uyghur population continues today to proudly keep up their identity and their traditions , although they become a minority on their own territory.
For additional information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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