One again gentlemen, am I missing something here viewing the video and reading the comments? Musharraf is actually saying it would be "unfortunate" if this was being seen as a provincial/ethnic issue and he is hoping that those sitting in judgement and going for his jugular will not use his ethnicity as an excuse.
The reality is that we have had Punjabi and Pakhtun usurpers and we have had abettors and aiders of all ethnic background involved in the past military takeovers (and many of these people are still alive), yet the the noose is only around Musharraf's neck. Can this be a case of the country exorcising itself off its collective sin of military takeovers by scapegoating a general who is from a minority ethnic group? Since this ethnic cat is out of the bag now, the majority ethnic groups cannot downplay this as the perception will persist.
Musharraf's military takeover has a cast of hundreds. If this was to be a trial without favour, political compulsions and even ethnic considerations, then we would see something similar to Turkey where the entire senior leadership of the then armed forces and many other supporting actors (military and civil) were punished and sent to jail. If this is how this is to turn out, then we know that justice has no colour or favour for anyone. However the reality is that only one man is being singled out. Musharraf, personally, is not provincial minded at all.
Lets be realistic. What is a son of the soil in our Pakistani parlance? Perhaps its not talked about openly, but plays a role day and night. I have seen it in service myself but its not entirely debilitating. That is, work goes on and you manage and progress but it rears its ugly head quite often. Education and upward mobility in Pakistan is changing this but there is still a very nasty, undercurrent of the need to identify one as of the soil and those who are not. Outsiders cannot put their finger on this phenomena and the closest that I have seen someone coming to understanding maybe a strand of this is Anatoly Lieven in his book where he discusses this issue in depth.
I was on a course in the US and sat through a gathering and was exposed to the most disgusting display of provincialism. And this came from educated, some would even say, the "elite" of Pakistan. It was naked, outright bashing of a smaller ethnic grouping that felt out of place and time (I would have expected that in the 50s maybe).
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