Little about the Uyghurs

In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is the very least populated province while it covers close to a sixth from the country's area. Getting resisted during generations the Han Chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old Turkestan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is primarily Uyghurs and Turkish - speaking System.

Islamic mainly, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identification that, in particular, enabled them to preserve a strong big difference in opposition to the Chinese invader. Without a doubt, 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 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 opening the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.

Under the influence of the beliefs which they adopted, Uyghur People 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 change because it was accompanied by the absorption of the Uyghur areas in the enormous Turco-Mongolian and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used at present.

If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real big difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different 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 pointing out to the Mongolian, Turkish or Uzbek roots of these men and these women.

For a few years, China has included the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only eight million population - a trifle for this immense region. Thus, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.

This particular statute will allow these people a few rights in a land exactly where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is accepted as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in the People's Republic of China, however, seems quite illusory. The presence of all natural sources in Xinjiang, and its distance with locations recognised as very sensitive, strongly encouraged the government to increase 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 flexibility, but in particular the recognition of their true identity, this movement was seriously repressed by the power authorities in location 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 peoples population continues today to proudly keep up their identification and their civilization , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own territory.

For further information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com