Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest’s guts. All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East. But I could get nothing into perspective. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos – all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.
In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. Theoretically – and secretly, of course – I was all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans.Īll this was perplexing and upsetting. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves.
When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.
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(You can also press V twice on a keyboard to auto-equip) WHITE switches to a paintbrush which can change the color of certain objects that have a paintbrush next to their name (You can also press F twice on a keyboard to auto-equip) BLACK switches the building UI to "Compact Mode" which limits the amount of scrolling you'd typically need.Home / Orwell / Essays and other works / Shooting an Elephant Shooting an Elephant (You can also press G on a keyboard to auto-equip) BROWN switches to a wand which allows you to clone objects. (You can also press V on a keyboard to auto-equip) PINK switches you to a broom which allows you to delete objects. (You can also press Z or Y on a keyboard instead) PURPLE switches to a crowbar which allows you to move objects. BLUE allows you to undo or redo your last edit. (You can also press T on a keyboard to auto-equip) GREEN opens up building settings such as saving your island or home or toggling tall walls. (You can also press Q on a keyboard to auto-equip) YELLOW switches to a saw which allows you to place walls. (You can also press F on a keyboard to auto-equip) ORANGE switches to a shovel which allows you to place floor tiles. RED switches to a hammer which allows you to place objects.
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