In the center 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 of the nation's territory. Having resisted during generations the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old Turkestan, fell under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic above all, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identity which, in specific, enabled them to preserve a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. Without a doubt, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a great civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their background, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., therefore starting the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the influence of the beliefs 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 coming of Islam was a great change simply because it was supported by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turkic and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used presently.
If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the culture of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different 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 origins of these men and these women.
For a few years, China has included the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only 8 million people - a little for this particular huge area. So, the Uyghurs are now part of the 56 racial minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.
This statute will allow them a few rights in a country where their difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur families 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 very illusory. The presence of all natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with nations known 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 work opportunities.
In reaction 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.
Asserting more freedom, but mainly the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely 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 their identification and their tradition , although they become a minority on their own land.
For much more information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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