In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a least populated province while it covers close to a sixth with the nation's area. Having resisted while in centuries the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old East Turkistan, fell under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic especially, the Uyghurs have a deep religious identity which, in particular, enabled them to preserve a strong difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. Really, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a brilliant civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their own background, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus starting the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the influence of the beliefs which they adopted, Uyghur People used successively, and at times in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own unique graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great modification because it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur land 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 presently.
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 characteristic 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, though they represent only 9 million population - a little for this particular big area. Therefore, 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 statute will allow them a few privileges in a country where their 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.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, appears pretty illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang, and its distance with countries recognised as very sensitive, clearly motivated the government to speed up 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 mainly the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in area Xinjiang.
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 hold their identity and their tradition , though they become a minority on their own land.
For more information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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