ABSTRACT
This chapter considers acts of terror as 'kinds of performance', such a comparison can only be thought of only if the performance of terror through its selective execution is to be seen as a kind of theatre. In contemporary times, news of politically scripted violence and 'spectacular' acts of terror has become a global reality. Contemporary use of terror as a form of politics subsumed under the ubiquitous term 'terrorism', which can be understood on the basis of a number of factors. The chapter describes terrorism needs to be understood as a 'particular kind of political performance. In the late 1980s, when the reign of terror in southern Sri Lanka was at its peak, one morning people in the vicinity of the central town of Kandy near the local university saw 18 bodyless heads neatly arranged on the bank of a small body of water silently gazing upon the water.
