In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang is the least populated province while it covers near to a sixth from the nation's area. Having resisted while in centuries the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Turkestan, fell into within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Muslim primarily, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identification which usually, in particular, allowed them to preserve a solid difference in opposition to the Chinese enemy. Really, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
During their background, the Uyghurs successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly converting 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 influence of the religions which they adopted, the Uyghurs taken successively, and at times 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 modification simply because it was followed by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turkic and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used today.
If their writing, their language and their religion mark a real 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 going 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 eight million people - a trifle for this large land. Thus, Uyghur people are now part of the 56 ethnic minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.
This particular law will allow these people a few rights in a land where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, 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, seems pretty illusory. The presence of natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with locations acknowledged as sensitive, strongly motivated the government to accelerate 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 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.
Saying more flexibility, but primarily the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in location 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 culture , 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
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