Diversity outdid itself at the recent 10th annual Baha'i International Convention in Haifa.

Delegates included an industrialist from Italy, a civil engineer from Barbados and a presidential adviser from South Africa. Or discover that the Ph.D. who works with the international research agency speaks two languages, but the woman who owns a small business in Cameroon speaks five.


Delegates and staff from the Bahá'í World Centre "This is easily the most diverse gathering of people on the planet," said Gregory C. Dahl, who formerly worked at the International Monetary Fund and has attended many U.N.-related meetings. He compared it to a U.N. meeting, but said the diversity at the Baha'i gathering came not just from the different nationalities but from the backgrounds of the participants.

"At the United Nations, there are representatives from many countries, but not from so many different social, economic and professional classes," said Mr. Dahl, who attended the Baha'i convention as a delegate from Bulgaria.

Among the delegates from Russia were two ethnic Russians, one with Estonian ancestry; two individuals of Buryat-Mongolian ethnicity from Eastern Siberia; a Tatar, whose family background is Muslim; an Osetin woman from the Caucasus; and an American-born man descended from Russian Jews who is married to a Russian and lives in Siberia.

From the United States came a federal judge, a psychologist, a medical doctor, a corporate retirement plan manager and an administrator who works with health-care issues for Native Americans. Some are white, some are black and one beblongs to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of the Sicangu Lakota.

From Albania came a police officer, a lawyer, a teacher and a secretary. From Venezuela came "younger" and "older" - three of the delegates were 25 years old, and two were in their 60s or older. More than 40 percent of the convention delegates were women.

The oldest delegate, from Niger, was 82. The youngest was a woman from Belarus who turned 21 last August and was elected to her National Assembly in a by-election in November. (The minimum age for election is 21.) Twelve delegates were 25 years old or younger.

Delegates came from almost everywhere -- from Greenland in the north to Chile, Argentina and New Zealand in the south; from Kiribati just west of the international dateline, to Samoa just east of the dateline.