Burhan's Deep Love of MotherlandAlmost everybody in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northwest China, knows Burhan Shahidi, who passed away 11 years ago.Burhan is well-known for compiling the "Uygur-Chinese-Russian Dictionary", which is an important teaching material in local schools. More importantly, Burhan also played a key role in creating a path of peaceful development for Xinjiang 50 years ago. Burhan's ancestors migrated to Russia a long time ago. Burhan, who was born in Russia in 1912, returned to China. "When I was a child, my grandpa often brought me onto the roof of our house, pointed to the east and said: our hometown is in China." Burhan explained why he came to China in his autobiography "Fifty Years of Xinjiang". In 1949, influenced by the national situation in China, Burhan, who was the chairman of Xinjiang Province of the Kuomintang government and other patriotic personages at that time, announced an uprising and accepted the conditions put forward by the ChineseCommunist Party for the peaceful liberation of Xinjiang. Burhan became the first chairman of the Xinjiang Provincial People's Government of new China. Later, he came to Beijing and served as the Vice-Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. He died in Beijing in 1989. Suum, Burhan's second eldest daughter, recalled that her father had often said that history compelled him to play a special role in Xinjiang: a provincial chairman who saw off the old era and greeted the new age. The westernmost Xinjiang, covering 1.6 million square kilometers or one sixth of China's total land area, is the largest provincial-level administrative region in the country. Xinjiang is inhabited by various ethnic groups. The Uygur people account for 50 percent of the region's population, surpassing the number of Han people. Fifty years ago, Xinjiang had no industry. Today, however, it has a well-integrated industrial system and its petrochemical products and agricultural machinery are used all over China. The 100 billion yuan west-to-east gas transmission project, which began recently, and other major projects forecast a brighter future for Xinjiang. "My father devoted his whole life to the unity of ethnic groups and earnestly practised what he advocated," Suum said, adding "He should be very happy to see that Xinjiang is enjoying a prosperous situation under which various ethnic groups live together harmoniously." Burhan had eight children. Of the six who are still alive, two are in Urumqi, three in Beijing and one in Uzbekistan. Suum, 73, was a teacher at Xinjiang University before her retirement. She had many students from Uygur, Kazakhs and Han nationalities. Suum's husband Oegur is proficient in Uygur, Chinese, Russian, German and English. He was once posted to Alma Ata as Deputy Counsel-General in the former Soviet Union. In the 1950s, Oegur and Suum gave up a chance to stay in Moscow and returned to Xinjiang after graduating from university. Oegur became the vice-president of the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences and wrote books, one of which was the Brief History of the Uygur Ethnic Group in China. Oegur said that Burhan had often said that "China is a big family of various ethnic groups, and every body should make contributions to this family." "We have always exhorted ourselves with his words," Oegur said. The grandchildren of Burhan are married with people from other ethnic groups like Kazakhs, Tatars, Uzbeks and Han. "We speak languages of five ethnic groups. But Uygur and Chinese are more often used," said Suum. Suum's grandson Diyas is studying at a footfall school in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province. Suum said, Diyas, 15 and the youngest of the Burhan's family, has a dream of joining in the State football team someday and becoming a world champion. |
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