Little about the Uyghurs

In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang is a very least populated land while it covers close to a sixth of the nation's area. Having resisted during hundreds of years the chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old East Turkestan, fell within the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghurs and Turkish - speaking System.

Islamic above all, the Uyghur people have a solid religious identification which usually, in specific, allowed them to protect a solid big difference towards the Chinese invader. Certainly, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.

While in their own historical past, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., therefore opening the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.

Under the influence of the beliefs which they taken on, the Uyghurs taken successively, and at times in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.

The arrival of Islam was a great modification since it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Muslim Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used currently.

If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real big difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different from their aspect, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A shiny skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features going 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 inhabitants - a little for this immense region. Therefore, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been recognized in an official way by the People's Republic of China.

This particular statute allows them a few privileges in a land where their big difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, looks quite illusory. The presence of natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its proximity with nations known as very sensitive, strongly urged 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 work 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.

Asserting more flexibility, but primarily the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in place 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 population continues today to proudly keep up their identification and their tradition , although they become a minority on their own territory.

For more information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com