In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang is a very least populated land while it covers close to a sixth with the nation's territory. Having resisted while in hundreds of years the Han Chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old East Turkestan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is generally Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Islamic most importantly, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identification which usually, in particular, allowed them to keep a strong big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Really, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their own history, the Uyghur People successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus starting the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the influence of the beliefs which they taken, Uyghur People taken successively, and sometimes 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 mainly because it was followed by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turkic and Muslim Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively 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 differ from their aspect, so characteristic of Central Asia's people. A shiny 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 included the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only eight million population - a trifle for this kind of huge country. So, the Uyghurs 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 will allow them a few rights in a country where their big difference is very often repressed. Thus, 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, appears pretty illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with nations acknowledged as very sensitive, strongly urged the government to increase the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the greater 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 flexibility, but mainly the acceptance 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 Uyghur population continues today to proudly keep up their identity and their culture , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own land.
For additional information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment