In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a very least populated province whereas it covers close to a sixth with the nation's area. Having resisted during centuries the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell into under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.
Muslim especially, the Uyghurs have a deep religious identification which usually, in particular, permitted them to preserve a solid big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Of course, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a brilliant civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their own historical past, the Uyghur People successively taken on Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally moving to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result opening the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the effect of the religions which they taken, Uyghur People used successively, and at times in a competing way, a great number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The entrance of Islam was a great modification because it was supported by the assimilation of the Uyghur areas in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Kingdom. 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 big difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different from their aspect, so characteristic 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 included the proper identity of these remote people, though they represent only 8 million people - a trifle for this kind of big country. Therefore, the Uyghurs are now part of the 56 racial minority groups having been well known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.
This particular statute allows these people a few privileges in a country exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is accepted as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, appears really illusory. The presence of all natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its proximity with locations recognized as very sensitive, highly 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 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.
Asserting more flexibility, but in particular the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in area Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
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 population continues today to proudly continue to keep their identification and their culture , though they become a minority on their own land.
To get more information about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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