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 least populated land while it covers near to a sixth with the country's territory. Having resisted while in generations the chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell within the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim mainly, the Uyghur people have a solid religious identity that, in specific, allowed them to preserve a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. In fact, 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 Uyghurs successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus starting the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they taken on, the Uyghurs used successively, and at times in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The entrance of Islam was a great modification since it was supported by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used nowadays.
If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real big difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also differ from their characteristic, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A matt skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features directing 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, although they represent only 8 million inhabitants - a little for this particular big area. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been well-known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This law allows these people a few rights in a land where their big difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, seems very illusory. The presence of all natural resources in Xinjiang, and its distance with countries identified as very sensitive, highly motivated the government to accelerate the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the greater responsibility job opportunities.
In reaction 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 primarily the recognition 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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly hold their identity and their traditions , even though they become a minority on their own land.
For more information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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