In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the land of Xinjiang is the very least populated province whereas it covers close to a sixth from the nation's territory. Having resisted during generations the chinese domination, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkistan, fell into under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Muslim especially, the Uyghur people have a deep religious identification which, in specific, permitted them to protect a strong big difference towards the Chinese enemy. Of course, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their own history, the Uyghurs successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus opening the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they adopted, 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 change simply because it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur areas in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Kingdom. 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 big difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also differ 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 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, though they represent only nine million inhabitants - a little for this specific immense country. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This particular statute will allow them a few privileges in a land exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is accepted as the second official language in Xinjiang.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, looks quite illusory. The presence of all-natural resources in Xinjiang, and its closeness with locations identified as sensitive, strongly encouraged the government to accelerate the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the higher responsibility jobs.
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 primarily the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in location 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 civilization , although they become a minority on their own land.
For more information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment