Portraits of Uyghur People

In the middle of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the north-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a least populated land whereas it covers close to a sixth with the nation's territory. Getting resisted while in hundreds of years the chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old Eastern Turkestan, fell into within the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mostly Uyghur People and Turkish - speaking System.

Muslim primarily, the Uyghur people have a strong religious identification that, in particular, allowed them to maintain a solid big difference towards the Chinese invader. Definitely, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a amazing civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.

While in their history, the Uyghur People successively adopted Shamanism, Manicheism, Buddhism and the Nestorianism before finally changing to Islam when the Arab conquerors beat the Chinese in year 751 BC., therefore beginning the way to the Islamization of the complete Central Asia.

Under the effect of the religions 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 unique graphic system.

The entrance of Islam was a great modification mainly because it was accompanied by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turkic and Islamic Empire. Thus, the descendants of Genghis Khan slowly replaced their writing by a Arabo-Persan alphabet, still used presently.

If their own writing, their own language and their religion mark a real big difference with the culture 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 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, though they represent only nine million people - a trifle for this specific great area. So, Uyghur people are now part of the fifty six racial minority groups having been well known in an official way by China.

This law will allow these people a few rights in a land where their big difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur people 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 the People's Republic of China, however, seems really illusory. The presence of all-natural resources in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and its area with locations recognised as sensitive, strongly encouraged 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 jobs.

In response 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.

Asserting more flexibility, but in particular 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 Uyghur peoples population continues today to proudly maintain their identity and their culture , although they become a minority on their own land.

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