In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the land of Xinjiang is a very least populated land while it covers near to a sixth from the country's area. Getting resisted while in generations the Han Chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell within the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim above all, the Uyghurs have a deep religious identity that, in particular, permitted them to keep a solid big difference towards the Chinese enemy. Definitely, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a brilliant 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 lastly converting to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., as a result starting the way to the Islamization of the entire Central Asia.
Under the effect of the beliefs which they adopted, the Uyghurs 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 land 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 at present.
If their writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the tradition of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different from their characteristic, so aspect of Central Asia's people. A matt skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features directing 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 nine million people - a trifle for this kind of big area. So, Uyghur people are now part of the 56 racial minority groups having been well-known in an official way by China.
This particular law allows them a few privileges in a country exactly where their big difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur people escape the "single child policy" and their language is recognized 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, looks really illusory. The presence of natural sources in Xinjiang, and its closeness with countries acknowledged as very sensitive, clearly 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 larger 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 especially the recognition of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in place Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
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 peoples population continues today to proudly maintain their identification and their ethnic heritage , although they become a minority on their own territory.
For more information and facts about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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