Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Portraits of Uyghurs

In the center of the desert landscapes of Taklamakan, in the northern-western part of China, the land of Xinjiang is the least populated province while it covers close to a sixth with the country's territory. Getting resisted during centuries the Han Chinese domination, Xinjiang, or Old East Turkestan, fell under the Chinese Han control in 1949. From then, its population is mainly Uyghurs and Turkic - speaking System.


Group Portrait of Centennial Symposium by ericennotamm


Muslim mainly, the Uyghurs have a very good religious identification that, in specific, enabled them to keep a solid difference towards the Chinese invader. In fact, the Uyghur Kingdom of Mongolia knew a excellent civilization, until its absorption by the Mongolian Empire in the XIIIth century.


Gaochang dead Buddha by Mutantfrog


While in their own 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., therefore opening the way to the Islamization of the whole Central Asia.


Under the influence of the beliefs which they taken on, Uyghur People used successively, and at times in a competing way, a large number of written forms (turco-runic, brahmi, tokharien, soghdien) before developing their own graphic system.



Arabic 001 by Rich Go

The coming of Islam was a great modification simply because it was followed by the absorption of the Uyghur land in the enormous Turkic and Islamic 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, Uyghur People also differ 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 pointing out to the Mongolian, Turkish or Uzbek origins of these men and these women.


Chit-chat by johey24


For a few years, China has integrated the proper identity of these remote people, although they represent only 9 million population - a trifle for this particular large region. Thus, the Uyghurs are now part of the fifty six ethnic minority groups having been well-known in an official way by China.


This law allows these people a few rights in a country where their difference is very often repressed. Therefore, Uyghur people 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 the People's Republic of China, however, looks quite illusory. The presence of natural sources in Xinjiang, and its area with locations well-known as very sensitive, clearly encouraged the government to accelerate the sinicization of this area. Million of Han thus came to settle in this new Chinese eldorado, monopolizing the more significant 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.

Asserting more freedom, but primarily the acceptance of their true identity, this movement was severely repressed by the power authorities in location 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 Uyghur population continues today to proudly keep their identification and their civilization , even though they become a minority on their own land.

To get more information and facts about the Uyghurs, you can visit a Uyghur website called Uyghur News at http://www.uyghurnews.com

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