In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang is a very least populated province whereas it covers close to a sixth of the nation's area. Getting resisted during generations the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is generally Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic especially, the Uyghurs have a solid religious identification which, in particular, permitted them to keep a solid big difference towards the Chinese invader. Definitely, the Uyghur Empire 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 adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result starting the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they taken, Uyghur People taken successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own unique graphic system.
The arrival of Islam was a great modification simply because it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense 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 writing, their language and their religion mark a real big difference with the culture of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different from their aspect, 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 included the proper identity of these remote people, though they represent only 9 million people - a little for this immense area. So, Uyghur people are now part of the 56 racial minority groups having been recognized in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This particular statute allows them a few rights in a land where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is accepted as the second official language in Xinjiang.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, looks quite illusory. The presence of all natural sources in Xinjiang, and its distance with locations well-known as sensitive, clearly 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 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.
Asserting more freedom, but in particular the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in area 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 peoples population continues today to proudly keep their identity and their traditions , although they become a minority on their own land.
To get more information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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