In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the very least populated land whereas it covers close to a sixth from the nation's area. Having resisted while in centuries the chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old Turkestan, fell into under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim especially, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identity which, in specific, allowed them to keep a solid 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.
During their own historical past, the Uyghurs 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 beginning the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the influence of the beliefs which they taken on, 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 unique graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great change since it was followed by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used these days.
If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People 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 directing 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, although they represent only 9 million inhabitants - a little for this kind of great area. Therefore, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been well-known in an official way by China.
This particular law will allow these people a few privileges in a land where their big difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, seems very illusory. The presence of all-natural sources in Xinjiang, and its proximity with nations identified as sensitive, clearly encouraged 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 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 primarily 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 Uyghur peoples population continues today to proudly maintain their identification and their civilization , even though they become a minority on their own territory.
To get more detailed information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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