I have always believed that if you want to patronise something, you must first love it.
You must have passion for the subject.
And you must be able to sit on the ground with the people who make it.
No protocol.
No distance.
Because if you cannot sit with the weaver, the artisan, the craftsperson, the dancer, the cook, the inmate learning a new skill, or the Orang Asli preserving a tradition, then perhaps you do not yet understand what it is that you are trying to preserve.
Royal patronage should never be only about ceremony.
It should not be about arriving, cutting a ribbon, posing for a photograph and leaving.
To me, patronage means caring enough to stay.
To listen.
To learn.
To encourage.
To participate.
And most of all, to help ensure that what we inherited survives long enough to be inherited again.
Perhaps my love for museums, preservation and conservation began much earlier than I realised.
It may have come from the informal education my parents gave me.
Never throw anything away.
Repair it.
Refurbish it.
Restore it.
Give it another life.
I grew up understanding that old things carry something that new things cannot immediately possess.
History.
Memory.
Character.
Culture.
Heritage.
I sometimes compare it, rather mischievously, to old money and new money.
New money may be able to buy something old, but it cannot buy the years that made it old.
That takes time.
And perhaps that is why I have always loved antiques.
Portobello Road became one of my favourite hunting grounds. Even in Malaysia, I am always looking.
Books.
Furniture.
Silver.
Jewellery.
Objects with a past.
I collect.
I keep.
I hoard.
And I value them.
Not because everything old is automatically precious, but because old things often carry stories, workmanship and memories that are impossible to recreate once they are lost.
Perhaps this also comes from the artistic streak in me.
I like to see.
I like to create.
I like to look at something and imagine what else it could become.
I have always loved making things with my hands, whether sewing, embroidering, designing, painting, cooking or experimenting with techniques simply because I want to know whether something can be done differently.
That instinct to create also makes me deeply aware of the skill behind the work of others.
When I see a piece of tenun, I do not see only cloth.
I see the hands that wove it.
When I see batik, I see the line of the canting, the discipline of the hand and the imagination behind the design.
When I see an old piece of silver or a carved object, I think of the person who made it and the knowledge that had to pass from one generation to another before that object could exist.
That is why preserving craft is not simply about preserving beautiful things.
It is about preserving knowledge.
I wear traditional clothes for the same reason.
I wear the baju kurung proudly, not merely because it is beautiful, but because it belongs to a living cultural inheritance.
And there is something deeply personal in that for me, because my great-great-grandfather was associated with the baju kurung tradition that eventually became part of our national dress.
So when I wear it, I do not feel that I am dressing in something old-fashioned.
I feel that I am carrying something forward.
The same is true of tenun.
Reviving tenun became a duty.
But the duty came afterwards.
The love came first.
And perhaps that is why the work has meant so much to me.
Tonight, at the Piala Tunku Azizah during the second year of Temasya Warisan Pahang, I will once again see something that gives me enormous satisfaction.
Tenun woven by inmates has come to dominate the top 20 prizes, including the top three.
To me, that is not merely an achievement for Yayasan Tenun Pahang, nor is it an achievement for the Royal Patron.
It is an achievement for the inmates themselves.
That matters.
To see people discover skill in their own hands.
To see pride replace uncertainty.
To see someone realise that they can create something beautiful, something valuable, something worthy of recognition.
That is where the satisfaction lies for me.
In encouraging them.
In sitting with them.
In watching confidence grow.
In reminding them that heritage is not something reserved for museums or palaces.
It belongs to the people who continue to make it.
That is also why Temasya Warisan Pahang means so much to me.
The Orang Asli dances and crafts.
The local batik producers.
The songket makers.
The food.
The music.
The dancing.
The crafts.
The old forms of entertainment.
The artisans.
The people.
And I do not want merely to watch from a chair.
I want to take part.
I want to draw batik with them.
I want to share a technique I developed myself.
I want to sit and watch wayang pacak with everyone else.
Perhaps one day we will bring back bangsawan too.
Next year, I hope we can explore natural dyes for the competition.
Because preserving heritage does not mean freezing it.
Heritage must be lived.
It must be practised.
It must be taught.
It must be shared.
It must be allowed to grow.
And perhaps most importantly, people must be taught to appreciate their own heritage and to be proud of it.
Too often, we admire something only after somebody from outside tells us that it is valuable.
I would rather we recognise its value ourselves.
I could not do any of this alone.
I have been fortunate to have Kraftangan Malaysia supporting these efforts, because we share the same conviction.
We do not see craft simply as products to be displayed or sold.
We see knowledge that must be preserved.
We see skills that must be taught.
We see livelihoods that can be strengthened.
We see traditions that should still exist when our grandchildren and great-grandchildren come looking for them.
And this is also where Yayasan Warisan Tunku Azizah enters the story.
It is, in many ways, simply another way for me to share what I have loved all my life.
The arts.
Craft.
Heritage.
Preservation.
Learning from people who know more than I do.
Sharing whatever little I may know.
And helping create spaces where these traditions can continue to breathe.
I have never believed that royal duty should be something worn like a costume.
We are not actors.
The people are not an audience.
Royal duties are not something that should be forced upon us and performed because someone has written them into a programme.
If I put my name to something, I must believe in it.
If I ask others to preserve something, I must be prepared to sit with them and understand it.
If I ask a young person to appreciate heritage, then I must be able to show them why it is worth appreciating.
That is what patronage means to me.
The royal duty came afterwards.
The love came first.
And when love is genuine, duty does not feel like duty at all.
It becomes responsibility.
It becomes an amanah.
We often speak about heritage as something we inherit from those who came before us.
But perhaps inheritance is only half the story.
The other half is what we choose to leave behind.
A song that is no longer sung disappears.
A dance that is no longer performed disappears.
A recipe that is no longer cooked disappears.
A pattern that is no longer woven disappears.
A craft without an apprentice disappears.
And once certain knowledge is lost, money alone cannot buy it back.
So perhaps royal patronage, at its best, is not about standing in front of culture.
It is about standing behind those who keep it alive.
Not taking the credit.
Giving them confidence.
Giving them space.
Giving them opportunity.
And sometimes, simply sitting on the ground beside them.
No protocol.
Just people sharing something they love.
Because in the end, culture survives not because it is ordered to survive.
It survives because somebody loves it enough to care.
And for me, that love has always come from the heart.
Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah holds a master’s degree from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation (ISTAC), International Islamic University Malaysia.