In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the very least populated province while it covers near to a sixth with the nation's area. Getting resisted while in generations the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkistan, fell under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic primarily, the Uyghur people have a deep religious identification which usually, in specific, permitted them to keep a strong big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Really, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a brilliant 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 lastly converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus opening the way to the Islamization of the complete 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 change because it was supported by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used these days.
If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different from their aspect, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A matt skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features pointing 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 9 million inhabitants - a little for this kind of large region. Therefore, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been known in an official way by China.
This statute will allow them a few privileges in a land exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is accepted as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, looks very illusory. The presence of all-natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with nations identified as sensitive, highly urged 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 jobs.
In response 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 primarily the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in location Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly continue to keep their identification and their civilization , although they become a minority on their own territory.
For further information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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