In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-west part of China, the province of Xinjiang is a very least populated land while it covers near to a sixth with the nation's area. Having resisted during generations the chinese control, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or Old East Turkestan, fell into under the Chinese Han domination in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghur People and Turkic - speaking System.
Muslim especially, the Uyghur people have a very good religious identification which, in particular, enabled them to keep a strong difference towards the Chinese invader. Without a doubt, the Uyghur Empire of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.
While in their own background, 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., therefore beginning the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.
Under the effect of the religions which they adopted, Uyghur People used successively, and sometimes in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.
The coming of Islam was a great modification since it was accompanied by the assimilation of the Uyghur land in the immense Turco-Mongolian and Muslim Kingdom. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan progressively replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used nowadays.
If their writing, their language and their religion mark a real difference with the culture of Chinese Han, the Uyghurs also are different from their aspect, so characteristic 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 roots 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 little for this kind of huge country. Therefore, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.
This statute will allow these people a few privileges in a land where their big difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur families escape the "single child policy" and their language is known as the second official language in Xinjiang.
The integration of the Uyghurs and their culture in China, however, appears quite illusory. The presence of all natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its distance 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 higher 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 primarily the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in area 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 Uyghurs population continues today to proudly hold their identification and their ethnic heritage , despite the fact that they become a minority on their own land.
For more information about Uyghur people, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com
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