Within East Turkistan, the Tengritagh mountain range is 1, kilometers long and kilometers wide. Altay mountain range in the north forms the border of East Turkistan with Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan. Its section within East Turkistan is kilometers long. The Kunlun mountain in the south forms the the border between East Turkistan and Tibet.
The most important rivers are the Tarim River 2, km long , traversing almost the whole length of the southern part of East Turkistan and emptzing into the desert; the Ili River flows west to Kazakhstan and into Lake Balqash; the Irtish River flows northwest out of East Turkistan and into the Arctic Ocean; the Karashaar River flows east from central Tengritagh into Lake Baghrash; the Konche River, starting from the Baghrash lake, originally flowed into Lopnur Lake, but now disappears in the desert long before reaching the lake.
Uyghur, formerly known as Eastern Turki, is a Turkic language spoken in East Turkistan mainly by the Uyghur ethnic group. Like many other Turkic languages, Uyghur displays vowel harmony and agglutination, lacks noun classes or grammatical gender, and is a left-branching language with Subject Object Verb word order.
The Uyghur language belongs to the Uyghuric or Southeastern group of the Turkic language family, which is controversially a branch of the Altaic language family. The languages most closely related to it include Uzbek, Ili Turki, and Aini. Some linguists consider the Turkic languages to be part of the larger Altaic language family, but others believe there is not enough evidence to support this claim.
In this period, Klaproth correctly asserted that Uyghur was a Turkic language, while Schmidt believed that Uyghur should be classified as a Tangut language. It is the direct ancestor of the Southeastern Turkic, or Uyghur-Chaghatai, family of languages, including the modern Uyghur and Uzbek languages. By contrast, Yugur, although in geographic proximity, is more closely related to the northeastern Turkic languages in Siberia.
Old Uyghur, through the influence of Perso-Arabic after the 13th century, developed into the Chagatai language, a literary language used all across Central Asia until the early 20th century. After Chaghatai fell into extinction, the standard versions of Uyghur and Uzbek were developed from dialects in the Chaghatai-speaking region, showing abundant Chaghatai influence.
The Uyghur language today shows considerable Persian influence as a result from Chaghatai, including numerous Persian loanwords. Modern Uyghur uses the Urumchi dialect in Xinjiang as its standard, while the similar Ili dialect is used in the former Soviet Union. Russian sources cite the central dialect of Ghulja Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture as the pronunciation norm for modern Standard Uyghur.
The similar pronunciation of Zhetysu and Fergana Uyghurs is considered standard for Uyghurs living in the Central Asian countries. Explorers from Europe, America and even Japan were amazed by the art treasures found there, and soon their reports caught the attention of an interested public around the world.
These relics of the Uyghur culture constitute today major collections in the museums of Berlin, London, Paris, Tokyo, St. Petersburg and New Delhi. The manuscripts and documents discovered in East Turkistan reveal the very high degree of civilization attained by the Uyghurs.
This Uyghur power, prestige and civilization, which dominated Central Asia for over a thousand years, went into a steep decline after the Manchu invasion of their homeland. Uyghur music embraces several distinct regional styles, product of the geography and complex history of the region, whose oasis kingdoms, separated by mountains and deserts, have been subject through the course of history to rule by many different outside forces.
Uyghurs embraced Islam in A. Kashgar, the capital of the Kingdom, quickly became one of the major learning centers of Islam. Art, the sciences, music and literature flourished as Islamic religious institutions nurtured the pursuit of an advanced culture. In this period, hundreds of world-renowned Uyghur scholars emerged.
Thousands of valuable books were written. Despite the prevailing challenges that face the Uyghur people, the Uyghurs have been able to preserve their cultural heritage, which is rich and unique in traditions and customs of all kinds.
Among these are the Uyghur Muquam, which is a series of canonized melodies and musical modes that are played to guide improvisation. The Uyghur Muquam musical tradition has been reveled all over the world for its depth, richness, complexity and individuality. Underlying every facet of Uyghur culture is religion. Although predominately Islam Sunni , Uyghurs have maintained a strong connection to folk religious beliefs and customs, which has wonderfully blended with moderate Islam and Sufism to form a completely new and unique form of Islam.
The many religious customs now incorporated into Uyghur Islamic belief and practice stems from Buddhism, Manacheaism, Shaminism and Tengrism. In addition, the Uyghur people have placed a high value on their native East Turkestan, and so localities in East Turkestan have religious significance.
Despite these pressures, Uyghur literature is still an important part of Uyghur culture, and Uyghur scholars and leaders have placed a high emphasis on saving this intangible cultural heritage for posterity. The Chinese Government subsequently made the first open execution of seven Uighurs in order to 'kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.
When the mourners got too close to the trucks, the Chinese soldiers opened fire and killed nine more people. Following the death of the exile East Turkestan leader Isa Yusuf Alptekin, who advocated non-violence and was called the Turkic Dalai Lama, no-one has had the authority to prevent militant resistance against Chinese rule in Xinjiang.
Branded as "Xinjiang's Hamas," the Home of East Turkestan Youth is a radical group committed to achieving the goal of independence through the use of armed force. But in the long run, independence is the only way to guarantee protection for Uyghurs from the Chinese state. At present, the conversation on East Turkestan, which China calls Xinjiang, is framed in terms of human rights violations instead of being addressed as an international conflict. Various dynasties briefly occupied parts of the region, brought parts of it into tributary relations, and manipulated local politics, but it was never successfully integrated into the Chinese empire.
Systematic discrimination, political marginalization, and Chinese colonization gave birth to an anti-colonial national movement, with Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples declaring independence in as the East Turkestan Republic. This short-lived state was overthrown in by a combination of Hui and Chinese forces under the Republic of China and Soviet-backed Chinese warlord Sheng Shicai.
This in turn led to a renewed anti-colonial national movement, in which Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and Tartars joined together, backed by the Soviet Union, to declare independence once more as the East Turkestan Republic in They were later joined by Mongols and Xibe Manchus.
Some Uyghurs, led by Isa Yusuf Alptekin, sought peaceful coexistence and autonomy within China during the Kuomintang era, but their requests fell on deaf ears. On Aug. At least 30 top officials of the East Turkestan Republic were assassinated in September by the Soviets, according to CIA reports declassified in Since the occupation of East Turkestan, Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples have been constantly subjected to the repressive colonial policies of the Chinese government.
Regardless of whether Uyghurs have pursued peaceful coexistence with the Chinese or fought against their rule, they have not been able to escape persecution. Is seeking independence harmful or beneficial to the current anti-genocide narratives? The East Turkestan independence movement is neither a recent phenomenon nor an opportunistic movement taking advantage of the Uyghur genocide.
The opposite is true—the Uyghur genocide is the direct, though delayed, result of Chinese colonialism and the occupation of East Turkestan. As a result, the East Turkestan independence movement is gaining momentum among the Uyghur diaspora. The anti-genocide narrative and the independence movement are complementary—the former serves as an urgent priority for the solution to the current East Turkestan crisis while the latter offers a long-term and sustainable framework for a peaceful future for Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples in East Turkestan and beyond.
The East Turkestan independence movement forces us to think about a post-genocide situation in a broader and more constructive way.
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