While one can feel only the deepest of sympathy for the pain and terror experienced by those present at Thailand’s most recent bar fire, as well as for the many more lives impacted by the needless tragedy, this writer must also admit to selfish feelings of frustration and annoyance.
These reactions of exasperation are definitely not aimed at the victims of the July 12 blaze at Rong Beer Na Ladprao, but they are also not specifically targeted at the common targets of anger following such calamities.
The city officials and safety inspectors, police, contractors, investors and all those whose negligence allowed for yet another of these episodes are surely deserving of blame and should face the consequences of their negligence and dereliction of duty.
Nonetheless, the reflexive resentment felt by this writer in the wake of the fire has been toward an attitude.
That attitude is the one that leads to countless solemn-faced statements being released after every tragedy featuring some version of the phrase ‘learning lessons’.
It has often been said that just as much as it constitutes a charming aspect of Thai culture, the nation’s ‘mai pen rai’ or ‘it’s alright’ approach to life is also the root of many of the ills that afflict us. At the very least, it can often act as an impediment to progress, a preference for taking it easy over persevering through what needs to be done.
Just as damaging, I would argue, is the idea that every disaster is an opportunity to ‘learn lessons’, that there is an almost cosmic reason for the kind of loss seen at Rong Beer Na Ladprao. The subtext is that whichever was the most recent catastrophe brought with it both the answers needed for future prevention and the motivation to apply those answers.
There are no lessons Thai officialdom or Thai society at large can glean from the July 12 fire, which has led to 33 deaths so far and dozens of injuries, that could not have been extrapolated from the Ember Hotel incident of 2024, the Mountain B fire of 2022 or the Santika nightclub fire of 2009, which has become the shorthand when describing an entertainment venue disaster.
Beyond fires within structures, headlines with variations on the words ‘lessons learned’ follow almost every incident which, even to the untrained eye, appeared wholly preventable.
Did the Pathum Thani bus fire that claimed 23 lives, mostly of small children, really lead to any revelations that could not have been foreseen?
Was the world of construction greatly enlightened by the collapse of the State Audit Office building in 2025?
One of the most disheartening aspects of engaging with the news here in Thailand is often the impression given by Thai officials, the media and members of the public alike that the nation exists in its own unique state, that the solutions and best practices applied across the globe somehow do not exist or are inexplicably inapplicable to Thailand.
But the measures needed to at the very least mitigate what transpired at Rong Beer Na Ladprao, Mountain B and Santika do exist and have been in use to great effect for decades.
That they were not utilised to save lives in those cases is not cause for introspection, it is cause for shame that readily available knowledge and lessons in morality were ignored.
That said, calling for an end to learning lessons is also a common refrain following a situation like the Ladprao bar tragedy.
Amorn Pimanmas, the president of the Thailand Structural Engineers Association, has expressed as much in his response to the incident.
‘The time for learning lessons is over, it is time to act,’ he told reporters.
Just as ‘mai pen rai’ may need to be reevaluated in the context of actual daily usage, it is not enough that ‘lessons learned’ be followed by ‘then take action’. The entire concept needs to be reconsidered.
Where preventable tragedies like the July 12 fire are concerned, there are no lessons left to be learned. That the outrage and regret of Thai society can be calmed by discussions of ‘what was learned’ is a danger in and of itself.
Where safety is concerned, it is not enough for the Thai people to urge officials to ‘learn their lessons’, or even just to hold them accountable after the fact. It is time for tried and true safety measures and protocols to be demanded, for unsafe constructs and practices to be a catalyst for public shunning and financial ruin.
These are lessons that have been abundantly learned and do not need repeating.