Little about the Uyghurs

In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the land of Xinjiang is a very least populated land whereas it covers close to a sixth with the country's area. Getting resisted while in generations the chinese domination, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old East Turkistan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.

Islamic most importantly, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identification that, in particular, enabled them to keep a strong difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Certainly, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a great civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.

During their own history, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus starting the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.

Under the effect of the religions which they taken, Uyghur People 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 coming of Islam was a great change because it was accompanied by the assimilation of the Uyghur areas in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Muslim Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly 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, the Uyghurs also are different from their characteristic, 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 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 population - a trifle for this kind of immense region. Therefore, Uyghur people 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 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 Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, appears pretty illusory. The presence of all natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its proximity with countries recognized 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 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.

Saying more flexibility, but primarily the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in place 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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly keep their identification and their tradition , though they become a minority on their own land.

For additional information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com