In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a least populated land whereas it covers near to a sixth from the nation's territory. Having resisted during generations the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic most importantly, the Uyghurs have a deep religious identification which, in specific, enabled them to preserve a strong big difference towards the Chinese enemy. Of course, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their own history, the Uyghur People successively taken on 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 influence of the religions which they adopted, Uyghur People used successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The arrival of Islam was a great modification simply because it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur areas in the enormous Turkic and Muslim 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 culture of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different from their characteristic, so aspect 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 integrated the proper identity of these remote people, though they represent only 9 million population - a trifle for this kind of great country. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the 56 racial minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.
This particular statute will allow them a few rights in a land exactly where their big difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is recognized as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, looks really illusory. The presence of all-natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its proximity with countries known as very sensitive, strongly urged the government to speed up the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the more significant 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 specially the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in location 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 Uyghur peoples population continues today to proudly keep up their identification and their tradition , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own land.
For further information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment