Uyghurs in Kazakhstan
Encyclopedia
Uyghurs in Kazakhstan form the country
's 7th-largest ethnic group, according to the 1999 census.
. In the 1940s, high-ranking Communist Party
officials in the Kazakh SSR planned to create a Uyghur autonomous oblast
in a large part of the territory of modern-day Almaty Province
. However, as the intention of the government was to bring Xinjiang further into the Soviet orbit rather than afford local Uyghurs genuine autonomy, the plan was scrapped after the Communist victory in China in 1949. During the 1950s in China, ethnic tensions and repression of minority separatist movements led to a mass exodus from Xinjiang
to the Kazakh SSR, consisting of Uyghurs, Kazakhs
, Mongols, and Kyrgyz. Following the Sino-Soviet split
and border conflict
, the Chinese government closed the Xinjiang–Kazakh SSR border, both to prevent flight by ethnic minorities, and to prevent the penetration of Soviet secret agents into China.
Uyghurs in Kazakhstan can be roughly divided into three groups based on the time of their ancestors' migration. The earliest, the yärlik ("locals"), are those who have been in the country the longest. They came to various areas of Kazakhstan, especially Semirechie
, in the late 19th and early 20th century. Most of the more than 200,000 Uyghurs in Kazakhstan trace their roots to the migrations during the 1950s and 1960s. They tend to refer to themselves as kegänlär, literally "newcomers". Others used to call them kitailik ("Chinese"), but now the more commonly-used term has become köchäp kegän; kitailik instead has come to refer to the latest Uyghur newcomers, those who have arrived since the 1990s (also referred to as wätändin, or "people from the homeland"). Today, Kazakhstan is often a transit point for Uyghur migration to Western Europe
and North America
; most Uyghurs in countries like Norway and Canada come from Central Asia rather than China.
and glasnost
in the 1980s, the Kazakh SSR government encouraged Uyghurs to discuss and promote Xinjiang independence in a successful strategy to eradicate a popular movement for Uyghur autonomy within the Soviet Union
. By 1990, the Uyghurs' shifting ethnic and political (anti-China) consciousness led them to build separate mosques and schools from the Dungan people ("Chinese Muslims"), with whom they had lived together in Kazakhstan since the 1950s.
Following the independence of Kazakhstan, the Kazakhstani government leveraged its tolerance for anti-Chinese activities among the Uyghurs in Kazakhstan to extract economic investment and cooperation from China. The Kazakhstani government remains a supporter and sponsor of many Uyghur cultural and political activities. It has sponsored 64 Uyghur schools teaching 21,000 Uyghur pupils in the country, and it has allowed the dissemination of Uyghur newspapers, despite their often having an anti-Chinese slant. On the other hand, some Uyghurs in Kazakhstan have found trouble with police and local gangsters, occasionally leading to deadly battles between Uyghurs and police, most famously in the Spring of 2000 in Almaty
. In June 2011, a Uyghur schoolteacher fleeing Xinjiang police in Kazakhstan on terrorism charges was deported back to China, following a request from Interpol
. Such incidents, and the Uyghurs' general orientation towards Xinjiang rather than Kazakhstan, have led some Kazakh political observers to argue that the Uyghurs "threaten the national security of Kazakhstan".
movement in Kazakhstan, which aimed to reinforce religious mores and "to unite Uyghur men... under a common ideology", quickly spread to China and became so politically potent that it was banned by the Xinjiang authorities. The subsequent suppression of Uyghur nationalist demonstrations in the Ghulja Incident
led to a renewed wave of Uyghur migration in Kazakhstan in 1997. Uyghurs in Kazakhstan continued to demonstrate against the Chinese government in Kazakhstan: that same year in Almaty
, local Uyghurs were reprimanded by authorities for holding mass prayers in graveyards during Ramadan
for the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, calling out to God "to help [the Uyghurs] endure the repression in China".
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
's 7th-largest ethnic group, according to the 1999 census.
Migration history
There is a centuries-old history of population movements between the territories which are today controlled by the neighbouring Republic of Kazakhstan and the People's Republic of China. Often this has involved minorities fleeing persecution on one side of the border and finding refuge on the other. By 1897, there were already roughly 56,000 Uyghurs in what is today Kazakhstan, according to the Russian Empire CensusRussian Empire Census
The Russian Imperial Census of 1897 was the first and the only census carried out in the Russian Empire . It recorded demographic data as of ....
. In the 1940s, high-ranking Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
officials in the Kazakh SSR planned to create a Uyghur autonomous oblast
Autonomous oblasts of the Soviet Union
Autonomous oblasts of the Soviet Union were administrative units created for a number of smaller nations, which were given autonomy within the republics of the Soviet Union.-Azerbaijan SSR:*Nagorno-Karabakh AO -Byelorussian SSR:...
in a large part of the territory of modern-day Almaty Province
Almaty Province
Almaty is a province of Kazakhstan. Its capital is Taldykorgan, which has a population of 118,400. The province itself has 1,603,700 people.-Geography:...
. However, as the intention of the government was to bring Xinjiang further into the Soviet orbit rather than afford local Uyghurs genuine autonomy, the plan was scrapped after the Communist victory in China in 1949. During the 1950s in China, ethnic tensions and repression of minority separatist movements led to a mass exodus from Xinjiang
Xinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
to the Kazakh SSR, consisting of Uyghurs, Kazakhs
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....
, Mongols, and Kyrgyz. Following the Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
and border conflict
Sino-Soviet border conflict
The Sino–Soviet border conflict was a seven-month military conflict between the Soviet Union and China at the height of the Sino–Soviet split in 1969. The most serious of these border clashes occurred in March 1969 in the vicinity of Zhenbao Island on the Ussuri River, also known as Damanskii...
, the Chinese government closed the Xinjiang–Kazakh SSR border, both to prevent flight by ethnic minorities, and to prevent the penetration of Soviet secret agents into China.
Uyghurs in Kazakhstan can be roughly divided into three groups based on the time of their ancestors' migration. The earliest, the yärlik ("locals"), are those who have been in the country the longest. They came to various areas of Kazakhstan, especially Semirechie
Semirechie
Zhetysu is a historical name of a part of Russian Turkestan, corresponding to the South-Eastern part of modern Kazakhstan. It owes its name, meaning "seven rivers" in Kazakh, to the rivers which flow from the south-east into Lake Balkhash.When the region was incorporated into the Russian Empire...
, in the late 19th and early 20th century. Most of the more than 200,000 Uyghurs in Kazakhstan trace their roots to the migrations during the 1950s and 1960s. They tend to refer to themselves as kegänlär, literally "newcomers". Others used to call them kitailik ("Chinese"), but now the more commonly-used term has become köchäp kegän; kitailik instead has come to refer to the latest Uyghur newcomers, those who have arrived since the 1990s (also referred to as wätändin, or "people from the homeland"). Today, Kazakhstan is often a transit point for Uyghur migration to Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
; most Uyghurs in countries like Norway and Canada come from Central Asia rather than China.
Social integration
Few of the older Uyghur migrants retain personal cross-border links with relatives or friends in Xinjiang. Those who do generally try to avoid drawing Kazakhstani government attention to these links; for example, when their relatives from Xinjiang come to visit, they obtain visas on the pretext of being cross-border traders. During perestroikaPerestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
and glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
in the 1980s, the Kazakh SSR government encouraged Uyghurs to discuss and promote Xinjiang independence in a successful strategy to eradicate a popular movement for Uyghur autonomy within the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. By 1990, the Uyghurs' shifting ethnic and political (anti-China) consciousness led them to build separate mosques and schools from the Dungan people ("Chinese Muslims"), with whom they had lived together in Kazakhstan since the 1950s.
Following the independence of Kazakhstan, the Kazakhstani government leveraged its tolerance for anti-Chinese activities among the Uyghurs in Kazakhstan to extract economic investment and cooperation from China. The Kazakhstani government remains a supporter and sponsor of many Uyghur cultural and political activities. It has sponsored 64 Uyghur schools teaching 21,000 Uyghur pupils in the country, and it has allowed the dissemination of Uyghur newspapers, despite their often having an anti-Chinese slant. On the other hand, some Uyghurs in Kazakhstan have found trouble with police and local gangsters, occasionally leading to deadly battles between Uyghurs and police, most famously in the Spring of 2000 in Almaty
Almaty
Almaty , also known by its former names Verny and Alma-Ata , is the former capital of Kazakhstan and the nation's largest city, with a population of 1,348,500...
. In June 2011, a Uyghur schoolteacher fleeing Xinjiang police in Kazakhstan on terrorism charges was deported back to China, following a request from Interpol
Interpol
Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...
. Such incidents, and the Uyghurs' general orientation towards Xinjiang rather than Kazakhstan, have led some Kazakh political observers to argue that the Uyghurs "threaten the national security of Kazakhstan".
Culture
Uyghurs who came to Kazakhstan in the 1950s and 1960s began in the 1970s to revive traditional Uyghur practises which had been lost by earlier Uyghur migrants. The revival of the meshrepMeshrep
A meshrep is a traditional male Uyghur gathering that typically includes "poetry, music, dance, and conversation within a structural context". Meshreps typically include music of the Muqam variety and ad-hoc tribunals on moral questions. "Meshrep" may also refer to the Islamic youth groups that...
movement in Kazakhstan, which aimed to reinforce religious mores and "to unite Uyghur men... under a common ideology", quickly spread to China and became so politically potent that it was banned by the Xinjiang authorities. The subsequent suppression of Uyghur nationalist demonstrations in the Ghulja Incident
Ghulja Incident
The Ghulja Incident was the culmination of the Ghulja protests of 1997, a series of demonstrations or riots in the city of Ghulja in the Xinjiang autonomous region of the People's Republic of China beginning in early February 1997.The protests were sparked by the execution of 30 Uyghur...
led to a renewed wave of Uyghur migration in Kazakhstan in 1997. Uyghurs in Kazakhstan continued to demonstrate against the Chinese government in Kazakhstan: that same year in Almaty
Almaty
Almaty , also known by its former names Verny and Alma-Ata , is the former capital of Kazakhstan and the nation's largest city, with a population of 1,348,500...
, local Uyghurs were reprimanded by authorities for holding mass prayers in graveyards during Ramadan
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and...
for the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, calling out to God "to help [the Uyghurs] endure the repression in China".