In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a least populated province whereas it covers near to a sixth of the country's area. Getting resisted during hundreds of years the chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old Turkistan, fell within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Muslim especially, the Uyghurs have a strong religious identification that, in specific, enabled them to preserve a solid difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Certainly, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a brilliant civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their own background, the Uyghur People successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result starting the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they adopted, the Uyghurs 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 arrival of Islam was a great change because it was accompanied by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turkic and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used currently.
If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People 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 pointing 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 people - a little for this specific huge region. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been recognized in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This statute allows them a few privileges in a land exactly where their big difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is recognized as the second official language in Xinjiang.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, appears quite illusory. The presence of all-natural resources in Xinjiang, and its area with locations identified as very sensitive, clearly urged the government to speed up the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the larger responsibility job opportunities.
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 freedom, but especially the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in area 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 identification and their culture , although they become a minority on their own territory.
For more information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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