EAST TURKESTAN: A CROSSROAD OF CIVILIZATIONS The 2,200 years of Turkestan history have played host to some of the most important civilizations in the world. The area is a wide expanse of territory, stretching from the Caspian Sea and the southern part of the Ural Mountains in the west, Siberia in the north, Iran, Afghanistan and Tibet in the south, and China and Mongolia to the east. Today, the part of Turkestan that includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan is known as West Turkestan, and the area that has been under Chinese captivity for the last two centuries is known as East Turkestan. The geographical and strategic importance of Turkestan is obvious from the great interest shown in the area by Russia and China, the two regional superpowers. Russia and China have both played very important roles in Turkestan history, which is why it is divided into two parts today. Behind those two countries refusal to give the region up, no matter what cost, is its strategic position and its rich underground resources. For Russia, the Turkish states in the west, and for China, East Turkestan, are important reserves of raw materials. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia set up a powerful control mechanism in West Turkestan where states consisting of different Turkish tribes were set up. The area was given the name Soviet Central Asia, in place of the name Turkestan by which the land had been known for hundreds of years. The intention was to do away with the Turks shared national consciousness. The most important element of Russias policy in the region was to eliminate Islam entirely. Throughout this period, a number of sanctions were employed in an attempt to destroy the Turks national cultures; mosques and places offering religious instruction were closed down and religion was entirely divorced from social life. Crimean Turks were rounded up and exiled to Siberia in the course of a single night, and Russians were brought in to occupy their homes and lands. Furthermore, artificial ethnic conflicts were incited between the nations of Central Asia. Another of the Soviet regimes measures aimed at assimilating the Turks was to develop a second language alongside the mother tongues of the Muslims of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is for this reason that Russian is now preferred to Turkish as a means of communication between the communities in question. East Turkestan suffered similar oppression to that experienced in West Turkestan, but in an even more violent form. In the middle of the 1700s, East Turkestan was invaded by the Chinese. The political changes that occurred in the region (and the world as a whole) prevented the desire of the people of East Turkestan for independence from being translated into reality. China—a country with a total land area of some 10 million square kilometers—tried to exterminate the people of East Turkestan (also a giant nation of 2 million square kilometers) by its policies of oppression and isolation. Just like the Russians in West Turkestan, the Chinese also changed the regions name. The new name they used was the Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang. They then began to implement the same kinds of policies used by other imperialist nations. A ruthless war was waged against the local peoples beliefs, customs, and religious practices. Ethnic discrimination became rife, demands for independence were ferociously suppressed, defenseless people were exiled from their land, and Chinese settlers were brought in to replace them. The brutality known as Chinese torture and cruelty soon became reality. Before going into the details of the oppression, (of which most people are very unaware), we will review East Turkestans historical, geo-strategic and geo-political position.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 14:29:52 +0000
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