In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a very least populated land while it covers close to a sixth of the country's area. Getting resisted while in centuries the chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old East Turkistan, fell into within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Islamic especially, the Uyghurs have a very good religious identification that, in particular, allowed them to maintain a solid difference towards the Chinese invader. In fact, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their own background, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus beginning the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.
Under the influence of the beliefs which they taken, the Uyghurs used successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own unique graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great modification mainly because it was supported by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turkic and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used at present.
If their own writing, their language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different from their aspect, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A matt 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 nine million people - a trifle for this specific huge region. Therefore, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been well-known in an official way by China.
This law will allow 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.
The integration of the Uyghur people and their culture in China, however, looks really illusory. The presence of all natural sources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its closeness with nations well-known as sensitive, highly 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 jobs.
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.
Asserting more freedom, but primarily 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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly maintain their identification and their civilization , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own territory.
For further information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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