Little about the Uyghur People

In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a least populated province while it covers near to a sixth from the nation's area. Having resisted during hundreds of years the Han Chinese control, Xinjiang, or Old East Turkestan, fell into within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghurs and Turkish - speaking System.

Muslim primarily, the Uyghurs have a very good religious identification which usually, in particular, enabled them to keep a strong difference towards the Chinese enemy. Of course, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a great civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.

While in their historical past, the Uyghurs successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before lastly changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., thus starting the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.

Under the influence of the beliefs which they taken, Uyghur People used successively, and sometimes 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 change 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 these days.

If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real difference with the culture of Chinese Han, Uyghur People also are different from their characteristic, so characteristic of Central Asia's people. A shiny skin, eyes representing a whole pallet of colors, from black to deep blue, features directing 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, though they represent only 8 million inhabitants - a trifle for this kind of large country. So, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been known in an official way by the People's Republic of China.

This statute will allow them a few privileges in a country where their difference is very often repressed. Thus, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, seems pretty illusory. The presence of all-natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its distance with nations acknowledged as sensitive, strongly encouraged the government to accelerate the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the larger responsibility work opportunities.

In reaction to this true will to assimilate the Uyghur people into the Chinese culture, an independent party like East Turkistan Islamic Movement(ETIM) was born in the early 1990.

Saying more freedom, but specially the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in place Xinjiang.

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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly maintain their identity and their traditions , though they become a minority on their own land.

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