In 'Shooting an Elephant', what is Orwell's attitude to imperialism as revealed in the first two paragraphs?

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attitude towards Imperialism is one of antipathy, and this comes through quite strongly in the
opening two paragraphs. The narrator of the story uses negative terms throughout to describe
himself and his situation as a serving officer of empire. At the same time, although he hates
the empire and his own part in it, feeling 'an intolerable sense of guilt, he empathises with
the natives only in theory; in actuality he resents and despises them even as they resent and
despise him. He describes them variously as 'petty', 'bitter', 'wretched', 'hideous'. In fact,
at one point he expresses frankly murderous feelings towards them:

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.

 The narrator here
displays not just hate but real viciousness towards his colonial subjects. However, it is
important to realise that he is not naturally ill-disposed towards the colonised peoples; rather
it is the whole system under which he serves that causes him to feel like this. Such destructive
feelings are 'the normal by-products of Imperialism, as he sardonically remarks. It poisons his
whole outlook and leaves him with nowhere to turn.

The narrator is looking
back in retrospect to this time; his older, wiser self can see more clearly the confusion and
rage that affected his younger self. Although he observes that the British Empire was not as bad
as some other empires, he recognises that Imperialism has a detrimental effect on everyone, both
the rulers and the ruled, and renders normal, decent human intercourse
impossible.