THE Taliban seem to be striking at will at their chosen targets across the country with extra ferocity reserved for Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

In Balochistan the well-orchestrated targeted murders of the Shia Hazaras continue with several hundreds killed so far; and the only evidence of the state's existence surfaces when it is cited in the murder of Baloch nationalists.

We won't even talk of what's happening in the tribal belt because that is a war zone; we won't refer to Parachinar because that too is in the turbulent tribal areas. But shouldn't we mention Karachi where at one level political parties sit as coalition partners in government and at another fight bloody turf battles in the streets?

If the state exists it is more in terms of its acts of commission/omission, nasty manifestations of its policies and its failures rather than as a reassuring, comforting presence. We are enraged because another young man has been killed in a staged encounter in Lahore. We are angry because we didn't know the world's most wanted man had made a Pakistani city his home.

Journalist Saleem Shahzad appeared to know too much; asked too many tricky questions; raised too many difficult issues. He was battered to death. The state is neither responsible for, nor complicit in, his murder. But it's equally clueless about who is.

What a state to be in when ignorance is our best defence and incompetence the alternative explanation for everything that goes wrong.

There was just this one institution with mythical infallibility. It is now clear that the great institution is as fallible as the rest of us. And it must be smarting at the current microscopic examination of its shortcomings.

An international conspiracy, cry its defenders. The Americans and the Indians are the two main enemies sworn to undermine, even destroy, the Pakistani defence establishment; the two hostile powers are not even playing for a win they are manoeuvring for a walkover.

They want us floored so we can't defend our national interest with the vigour and commitment they pursue theirs. But can we honestly say we need enemies to cause us harm when such is our propensity for self-destructive decisions, policies and actions?

There can be little doubt that the intense scrutiny of the military's role and its failures on the one hand and its high death toll in the war against the militants must be creating some awkward moments for its leadership within the defence forces.

Other institutions, elected civilian politicians have all been subjected to more stringent scrutiny. This is a first for the military.

But even then the exaggerated accounts of the 'unease' in the ranks of the general staff such as the recent one in the NYT which raised the prospect of a 'colonels' coup' can best be attributed to a lack of journalistic maturity and very little understanding of the topic.

It couldn't have been a product of the army spin machine, an attempt to send a message to (depending on the day of the week it is) a close ally/a hostile foreign power why more of its demands cannot be met. Or was it?

But whatever the answer where does it leave us? Is there light at the end of the tunnel or is the scenario so dismal that burying one's head in the sand is the only viable and sane option? If one were to look beyond the pale of power politics it won't be difficult to spot signs that bear hope.

There are thousands of heroic acts in our blighted land every day that keep it going, that keep hope alive, that silence those whose crystal balls only show doom and gloom. One can cite but a few examples.

Does the name Bashir mean anything to you? Think hard if you can't recall. He was the security guard we saw on the CCTV footage from the suicide attack at the Silk Bank branch in Islamabad earlier this week on most news channels.

He rushes towards the bomber in an attempt to check the latter's run into the branch and (off camera) wrestles him to the ground before the young man triggers the bomb, taking the guard with him.

If Bashir was an employee of a private security company, he'd typically work 12-hour shifts every day of the week, not have a day's paid leave in a year, have his pay docked in case he was sick and earn a princely sum of (in the bulk of cases) not more than Rs6,500 a month.

Weren't his Rs6,500 the most well-earned in the Islamic Republic especially when typically he wouldn't even be entitled to a pension, any other benefits? How many lives did Bashir save that day by merely doing his duty? But can anyone fathom the pain and deprivation his loss will bring to his poverty-stricken family?

Do you recall Pervez Masih? He was the Christian 'janitor' who intercepted a suicide bomber at the Islamic University in Islamabad in October 2009. The bomber, having shot the guard posted outside, was rushing towards the door of the packed women's cafeteria when Masih intervened. His embrace of death with the bomber saved dozens, possibly hundreds, of lives.

This inspired Maham Ali, a young student, who raised more than Rs50,000 of her own accord for Pervez Masih's widow and child. That's all I know about her. I have never met her or know her, or am even aware of which city she lives in.

What matters is the hope she and countless others like her bring in these bleak times. One must be grateful for Bashir and for Pervez Masih and for Maham Ali — they allow us to argue all is not lost, that we aren't a failed state.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn .