Some quick research into the red carpet phenomenon takes us beyond movie premiers and back to 485BC and Aeschylus, a Greek playright. Aeschylus created a character called Agenemon whose wife deceives him into walking onto red carpet which was intended for the gods.  Fast forward to the 1820s and we see the red carpet rolled out for a US President and in 1902 red carpet is used in ceremonial fashion to welcome guests to a classy train journey.

It’s interesting to see how the “red carpet” treatment evolved from our respect and reverence for “the gods”, to dignitaries and rulers, to ceremony and now to celebrity. Inviting someone to the red carpet is like placing them on a pedestal above the ordinary citizen for a period of time, to acknowledge and perhaps celebrate their leadership or achievement in a particular field (notwithstanding Australia’s pedestals which are more often than not used as a national pastime to shoot people off and bring them down to size).

It seems to me that the red carpet is changing again.

Is the bar being raised? It wasn’t long ago that our red carpet standards seemed to be quite different. Britain’s Sir Winston Churchill was regarded as a formidable prime minister during world war II,  yet he was previously sacked from the military for incompetence, and is known to have arrived drunk while serving in his political office.   Today, we not only send our leaders in business, politics or governance to post graduate education to earn the right to assume positions of leadership, we are now more often punishing them for incompetence or breaches of our trust and integrity. We have also created the expectation that celebrity status automatically equates with a leadership position on issues of national or global importance. 

Perhaps these trends are because our standards are rising and perhaps it is also because the media and the internet have given us a new access to probe and judge our leaders and celebrities lives.   

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The world responded fearfully to 9/11 and similarly to the world economic crisis which can be traced back to the US subprime mortgage fiasco and housing crisis.  While these are the exports of fear and despair, Obama’s win seems to have ignited the exact opposite – “yes we can” inspiring a wave of nationalism, hope, confidence and a change in leadership that is an inspiration to the rest of the world.      It’s a message of hope that is coming just at the right time when confidence levels around the globe are taking a hammering.    The look on the faces of US citizens – both black and white – made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end with just how profound this election win is.    His african-american heritage is a message about the elimination of discrimination from politics in the US. Just as profound as Jimmy Carter’s 1976 election (as the first catholic president) was a message about eliminating religion from politics in the US., Barack’s popular win is a backlash against nostalgia and tradition and a statement about the US people’s  growing intolerance to global conflict and war.        The win is a message that the American dream is not just reserved for the privileged few – it can truly be achieved by anyone.      What other evidence do we need that the American dream can become reality if someone who carries the names “Hussein” and “Obama” can become the next president-elect of the United States.   Who can forget the words of Dr Martin Luther King in 1963  when he said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”.   I hope Barack Obama’s shoulders are broad enough to carry the weight of expectation that the US (and I expect many other nations) have placed upon him to ensure that “change starts today” .For your FREE subscription to Di Worrall’s Creating a Climate for Change Newsletter click on the following link http://www.worrallassociates.com.au/