Orwell George: "Shooting an Elephant"

          In the twentieth century, the narrator explains how he is a British police officer in Burma where there Europeans were greatly looked down upon and treated with disrespect. The officer receives a call that an elephant is on the loose and needs to be tamed, so he grabs his gun intentionally for his own protection. He follows where people tell him to go and finds that a man has been killed by the elephant. Soon he runs into the beast and has to make the decision weather or not he is going to shoot the animal. He does not want to look like a fool, so he shoots the elephant, barley making an impact on the large animal, shooting him a few more times till he falls on the ground barely breathing. While walking away he thinks that it was legal to shoot the animal and it made him not look like a fool, however he feels that he has murdered the elephant.
          This story is a metaphor for British imperialism at this time. The elephant was a good example that when he turns tyrant, he destroys his own freedom. tyrant. Wild and untamed is the same way he views imperialism which causes an end to freedom. He uses the British officer to symbolize imperial country, and he uses the elephant to symbolize the victims of imperialist having their freedom taken from them.

Question: Why didn't he stand up for his beliefs?