Little about the Uyghurs

In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the least populated province while it covers close to a sixth with the country's area. Getting resisted while in centuries the chinese domination, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkistan, fell into within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.

Muslim mainly, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identification which usually, in specific, allowed them to maintain a strong big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Definitely, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.

While in their history, the Uyghur People 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 opening the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.

Under the effect of the religions which they taken, the Uyghurs 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 entrance of Islam was a great change simply because it was supported by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used nowadays.

If their writing, their language and their religion mark a real big difference with the tradition 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 eight million people - a trifle for this kind of immense country. Thus, the Uyghurs are now part of the 56 ethnic minority groups having been well known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.

This particular law will allow these people a few privileges in a country where their big 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 Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, looks very illusory. The presence of natural resources in Xinjiang, and its closeness with nations well-known as sensitive, highly encouraged 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 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 freedom, but mainly the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in area Xinjiang.

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 keep their identification and their culture , although they become a minority on their own territory.

To get more detailed information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com