Coenen, Filip

Shoemaker, took part in the fifth congress of the IWA as a delegate of the section of Antwerp.

Co-founded the Volksverbond in Antwerp on 17 March 1867 as a political alternative of the labour movement against the political parties of the bourgeoisie. Judging that these had their own legislative organs through the right of cession, Coenen, who was a shoemaker, demanded the abolition of the Senate and the establishment of a workers' own Chamber. Before 1867, he had been a member of the Meeting Party, but he broke with it when he realised that only an independent labour movement could achieve workers' emancipation. Until 1869, Coenen remained a member of the Nederduitsche Bond. He also left this organisation to preserve his freedom of movement. Incidentally, in 1871 it would come to a split between Flemish progressists and the First International, of which Coenen's Volksverbond had become the Antwerp branch. In his magazine De Werker, which appeared from 1868 onwards as the first socialist newspaper in Antwerp, he remained true to the Heel-Nederland idea in the early 1870s.

Politically, Coenen briefly evolved towards anarchism in the 1870s, even becoming secretary of the federal council of the anti-authoritarian International. Influenced by César de Paepe, he then turned towards state socialism and became co-founder of the Vlaamsche Socialistische Arbeiderspartij (1877). Coenen also attended the founding congress of the Belgian Workers' Party in 1885, but by then his role in the Antwerp and Belgian socialist movement had already been played out. Regarding the Flemish emancipation struggle, he judged that it was subordinate to the social struggle: once the existing social system was overthrown, any injustice, including that towards the Flemings, would cease. On the other hand, he did defend the social character of the V.B. against the interpretation that the V.B. was a purely Catholic movement. He believed that intellectuals had to achieve social commitment through the V.B. (-- NEVB online)

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