The Uyghurs are Turkic-speaking Muslims from the Central Asian region. The largest population lives in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in the country’s north-west. The Uyghurs are one of many persecuted Muslim minorities in China.
History
There are an estimated 11 to 15 million Uyghurs in China, the vast majority live in Xinjiang in northwestern China, a large province that takes up 1/6 of the area of China.
Historians viewed the Uyghurs as the original inhabitants of Xinjiang with a long history.
In the early part of the 20th Century, the Uyghurs briefly declared independence. The region was brought under the complete control of communist China in 1949.
The Uyghurs in Xinjiang now make up about 40 percent of the population. Millions of Han Chinese have been moving to Xinjiang in the last 30 years.
In 1990’s most of the schools used Uyghur language and I was lucky to have the chance to complete my elementary school in my mother tongue. Additionally, my grandfather who was a writer and teacher had a big collection of valuable books about Uyghur culture and history that I used to read. Nowadays such books are hard to find.
Moving to Beijing made me realize the importance of my mother tongue at a time when my Chinese language skills were not so good. Sometimes it was hard to communicate with others, not only because of the language but also because of the gap created by the cultural differences of Uyghur and Chinese students. What was surprising is that many of my classmates became interested in the fact that I played the guitar and this seemed to narrow the cultural gap. The common interest created a safe place for interaction and dissolved to some degree the prejudice against the Uyghur stereotype. In addition, many other Uyghur students who played soccer were treated in a similar way with me. Soccer seemed to be a sport at which Chinese students were not very familiar with. We grew up playing soccer and our skills were fascinating for them. I slowly started to feel more comfortable in the community. I rather found my identity and I became much more confident and active with my studies. To understand my culture and find my position in the society helped me a lot with many things in my life later and that is why culture is important for my music.
The Uyghur language is part of the Turkic group of Altaic languages, and the Uyghurs are among the oldest Turkic-speaking people of Central Asia. From the 16th century until the early 20th century, Uyghur was written with a version of the Arabic alphabet known as ‘Chagatai’.
Since the early 2000s, the Uyghur language is facing a huge threat, as it is not taught in schools. The official language to be spoken is Chinese that is replacing the Uyghur language gradually.
A reporter working for Independent UK, reported in 2017 that the Chinese Educational department warned that any school which “plays politics” and refuses to implement the edict that bans the use of Uyghur language, will be accused of being “two-faced” and shall be “severely punished”( Mortimez, C. 2017 ).[4] Ilshat Hassan, the president of the US-based Uyghur American Association, said the regional government was breaking China’s laws on the respect of ethnic minorities.
